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V 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 



l 







THE TRAIL 
OF THE SQUID 


BY 

HARVEY WICKHAM 

« I 

AUTHOR OF "THE CLUE OF THE PRIMROSE PETAL,” 
“THE SCARLET X,” “THE BONCOEUR AFFAIR,” ETC. 



NEW YORK 

EDWARD J. CLODE 

















































COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY 
EDWARD J . CLODE 


All Rights Reserved 


MINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


FEB 12'24 

©C1A7G5084 

SK 


i 





CONTENTS 


.HAPTER 

I. 

Paris Prepares to Dance 



. 

PAGE 

9 

II. 

Masks and Murder 




28 

III. 

The Misericorde . 




43 

IV. 

The Ex-King Takes a Hand 




58 

V. 

What the Police Never See 




75 

VI. 

A Well-Recommended Servant 




96 

VII. 

A Mansion and its Inmates 




114 

VIII. 

Side Lights .... 




128 

IX. 

More Vandalism 




149 

X. 

The Fate of an Informer . 




173 

XI. 

Avignon. 




202 

XII. 

An Elopement 




222 

XIII. 

Lepadou Enters the Tower 




247 

XIV. 

Baiting the Trap . 




2 73 

XV. 

Within the Tentacles 




289 

XVI. 

All Journeys End 

. 

• 

• 

301 













THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 





THETRAILOFTHESQUID 


CHAPTER I 

PARIS PREPARES TO DANCE 

Clara Hope was in Paris with no other object than 
to find some trace of her employer, Ferris McClue. 
It was the evening of March 17, the festival of mi* 
careme, or mid-lent, and the ancient carousal known 
as the bal des Tapettes was being revived in at least 
a dozen different quarters after a half-century of neg¬ 
lect. All Paris, in other words, was preparing to dance 
and to make a night of it. 

But Clara did not know this. She only knew that 
The Ferret, who had left her alone in charge of his 
New York office more than a year ago, no longer an¬ 
swered either letters or cablegrams or gave any other 
sign of continued existence. Beyond question some¬ 
thing serious had happened. Yes, but what? That 
was the problem which she had set herself to solve. 


10 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

Outwardly few women could have looked less fitted 
for the task. She was still to all appearance that plump 
little Puritan, just beginning to be a bit old-maidish 
in her ideas but not so far gone as to be altogether 
contented with the lot of school-teacher in a New 
England country town, who had answered his adver¬ 
tisement for a book-keeper at the beginning of their 
joint career. 

In his office, giving herself conscientiously to the 
work, she had progressed wonderfully, learned in a 
short time all that could be taught of the technic of 
crime detection practiced on a modern and magifi- 
cent scale, and seen her whole existence fill with the 
crude material of excitement. Once or twice, face to 
face with violence and death, she had risen to heights 
of devotion only to be explained by love. Yet, although 
she had promised McClue that she would marry him, 
she had never been able to overcome a certain innate 
distaste for his profession. Her idea of marriage was 
that of a haven where one might be at peace and thor¬ 
oughly conventional; and whenever there was an in¬ 
terval of calm at the agency she showed an unmistak¬ 
able tendency to revert to the school-marm, having 
always failed utterly to find that delight in adventure 
for adventure’s sake which had led The Ferret to much 
of his success. 


PARIS PREPARES TO DANCE 


ii 


Once, at the end of a perilous voyage to the South 
Seas, they were actually on the point of taking out a 
marriage license, when another taxi running into theirs 
had hurled her into temporary invalidism. Upon her 
recovery, she looked back upon the accident almost 
as an escape. Perhaps she was still suffering from 
shock. Certainly marriage no longer appealed to her. 
And when McClue, fired with the ambition to track a 
notorious criminal, expressed a desire to go to Europe, 
she rather exaggerated the vague weakness which con¬ 
tinued to cling about her, and thus managed to get 
herself left behind. 

It was after his departure, when the letters she duti¬ 
fully wrote to the absentee suddenly ceased to bring 
responses, that a new Clara rose, so to speak, like a 
Phenix from the ashes of the old. No mere estrange¬ 
ment confronted her, for McClue did not answer 
even business communications. Something inimical,' 
subtle and daring had enveloped him, swallowed him 
up. And with the conviction of this fact came that 
flair, that eagerness in the pursuit of clues which for¬ 
merly had been The Ferrets alone. She developed 
something like clairvoyance, and though she had noth¬ 
ing to go upon save his last report—to the effect that 
the man he sought had been all but in his handsi 


12 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


only to slip through them and disappear—she was 
troubled by no doubhts as to the general course to 
be followed. 

He had been about to start for Avignon, but no evi¬ 
dence existed that he had ever reached there. Better 
begin, then, in Paris, where he was known to have 
lived. The only other clue, if clue it could be called, 
was a passage in his last letter, wherein he had play¬ 
fully described the enemy as “a human squid, with 
tentacles everywhere but whose head keeps out of the 
way.” Little enough, in all conscience. But she did 
not despair. She was in Paris, and somewhere about 
her lay the trail she sought. 

Letting herself drift with the crowds, she crossed 
the Seine to the Latin Quarter and passed up the 
famous boulevard St. Michel to where from a simple 
wooden archway the name “Bouiller” in electric lights 
shone invitingly upon a knot of masks already seeking 
admittance. 

“What is it?” she asked in bookish French of the 
men behind the ticket window. 

“All night ball, Miss,” he grinned, shoving forward 
a bit of pasteboard. 

By dint of following the line of least resistance, she 
had come to the very center of the night’s doings—a 
much-advertised entertainment that was being put on 


PARIS PREPARES TO DANCE 


13 


by the united efforts of the painters, sculptors, writers 
and musicians of the neighborhood, and promising to 
rival in its extravagance one of those scandalous and 
now almost forgotten fetes des fous of the Middle 
Ages. 

In this same direction, had she but known it, two 
men almost completely enveloped in black dominoes 
were being driven in a rapid motor-car which an ini¬ 
tiate would have recognized as belonging to the police. 
The elder of these, a gray-headed figure with twin¬ 
kling eyes and a restless, squirrel-like activity in all his 
movements, looked out of place in an official vehicle. 
No casual observer would have dreamed that he was 
a magistrate, and indeed Tardieu’s connection with 
the Parquet had often been criticized. Yet there was 
an air of whimsical honesty about the judge and a 
certain ease in bearing, indicative of ability so long 
unquestioned that it could afford to dispense with 
dignity. 

“You should remember the two canons of Evreux,” 
he was saying to his companion. “Both were hanged 
from the belfry of their cathedral for trying to sup¬ 
press the follies of the carnival” 

Victor Balai, a much younger man, shrugged his 
shoulders as high as was permitted by the respect due 


i 4 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

to a juge d’instruction from one who was merely at 

the head of the Police Judiciare. 

“I suppose that’s some eighteenth century prece¬ 
dent,” he ventured. 

“Seventeenth,” corrected Tardieu. “But don’t think 
I’m altogether out of touch with the things of the 
twentieth. I’d like to stop this ball tonight as much 
as you would. Some remedies, however, are worse 
than the disease. And just because balai means broom 
and you happen to be a new one, I wouldn’t try to 
sweep everything clean if I were you—not, at least, 
until I was tired of being in office.” 

“Oh, I shan’t do anything,” snapped the chief. “An¬ 
other outrage to public morals, more or less, counts 
for nothing these days.” 

“We’re lucky, Balai, if we get off with that. Do 
you recall what is said to have happened at the festival 
of Santa Maria della Salute at Venice last fall? And at 
the public games at Cassis before that? It looks to me 
as if a new sort of Jack VEventeur had made his 
appearance in Europe.” 

The other turned in surprise. 

“They were murders, you think?” 

“I’m sure of it, official reports to the contrary not¬ 
withstanding.” 

“Even so, they’ve nothing to do with us.” 


PARIS PREPARES TO DANCE 


IS 


“I hope not, Balai, I hope not. You’re afraid of 
an orgy. I’m afraid of a crowd. But here we are. 
Heaven send that nothing happens to put us both in 
the right.” 

They drew their hoods hastily over their heads and 
faces, descended from the car, and with the careful 
steps of men unaccustomed to having their vision 
limited to what could be seen from eye-holes, made 
their way to the entrance of the Bouiller estab¬ 
lishment. There they presented ordinary tickets and 
were admitted without their identities having been 
disclosed. 

A little earlier that same evening, the coming ball 
was being discussed in an unnoticed corner of a 
promiscuous resort known as the Cafe de la Ro- 
tonde, at the junction of the boulevards Raspail and 
Montparnasse, by a pair of worthies of a different 
sort. 

“You don’t mean,” said one—a slender youth, fas¬ 
tidiously dressed and with over-white hands, “you 
don’t mean that you won’t be there?” 

The other wagged his heavy beard disdainfully, 
letting his long black hair trace yet another infinites¬ 
imal streak of grease upon the hunched-up folds of 
his velveteen coat. 

“Not if my name continues to be Flamand Bee. 


X 6 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

SccUrats! Poseurs! What should I do at their ball? 
You like that sort of thing, Haquenee. As for me, I’d 
prefer to see them all hanged—in place of their pic¬ 
tures at the next salon.” 

“You’e a savage,” smiled he of the pale hands, giv¬ 
ing a squint at his elegant self in one of the mirrors 
which covered the walls. “Now I’m glad to mix with 
these people. Makes me feel as if I was coming up 
in the world.” 

“And they make me feel as if I had come down.” 

“Yes, that’s what’s the matter with you, mon vieux. 
But I’ve got an extra ticket. Stick it into your pocket 
and forget that the Academy is sour grapes.” 

“The Academy?” 

Bee swore furiously beneath his breath, shoved the 
proffered entrance-slip away from him, thrust a hand 
deep into his trousers and brought out a crumpled 
bunch of hundred-franc notes. 

“If you think it’s poverty that keeps me away from 
those dancing apes, what do you say to this?” 

Haquenee, or La Haquende as he was more fre¬ 
quently called, regarded the unexpected sight of money 
with narrowing eyes. 

“You’ve sold a picture—or I was never an apache!” 

“That’s likely,” the other growled, tossing the notes 


PARIS PREPARES TO DANCE 17 

contemptuously to the floor—from which a passing 
waiter, thinking the motion accidental, hastened to re¬ 
store them to his hand. 

La Haquenee’s eyes grew narrower still, and across 
his face swept a look—keen, cold, sinister. 

“Copain” he whispered, “I always suspected that 
you were one of us. But what’s the lay?” 

Bee threw back his head and laughed. 

“You’re a bien joli canaille, aren’t you, with your 
petty hates and scrimmages? Here, take this stuff 
if you don’t really care where such things come from. 
But before you call me comrade-” 

“I’d better make sure you aren’t the devil in per¬ 
son, eh?” 

Haquenee refused the money and veiled his glance 
of speculative curiosity in an amiable looking grin. 
“I know how to interest you in the ball, though. La 
Gadelle will be there—and I’ve seen you watching her 
in the Bois.” 

“Why not? The most beautiful woman in Paris— 
anyone might watch her. But she has bought a villa 
at Nimes, and is going to marry Julien Ferrard and 
live like Maupassant’s Corsican lovers—or those in 
‘Moonlight.’ She’ll no more be at les Tapettes than I 
will.” 

“There you’re wrong. It’s Ferrard’s idea, I under- 



i8 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

stand. They’re being given a dinner somewhere and 
are going afterwards.” 

“Bah! Do you know these people?” 

“No more than you do. Only—a cat may look at 
a king.” 

“Then let me tell you something. Ferrard is lame, 
and he’ll never paint anything. But he isn’t such 
a fool as to lead the Red Currant back to that 
gang.” 

“Oh- 6 ! Rougette!” 

La Haquenee lifted his voice at the sight of a very 
young woman with a head of beautiful auburn hair 
rioting from beneath a cheap knitted cap, who was 
passing at the farther end of the salle. 

She paused, nodded carelessly, then caught sight of 
Bee and pushed her way through the gay, chattering, 
cigarette-smoking crowd, which, unable to find enough 
tables, overflowed the aisles and gave to the place an 
atmosphere of animated suffocation. 

“Flamand says that Silva Jonquille won’t be at the 
ball. He has murdered a tourist, or something, and 
has francs to throw to the dogs. But he pretends he’s 
going to spend the evening here.” 

“She’ll surely be at the ball,” responded Rougette, 
leaning towards long-beard and displaying a figure 
with that slender, cat-like grace seldom found even 


PARIS PREPARES TO DANCE 19 

in Paris except among the artists’ models. “I’m 
going to her farewell dinner now. It’s at l’Estrange’s. 
And I’m starred in the pageant at the Bouiller after¬ 
wards. It’s to be quite shock-ing, like before the 
war.” 

At her mincing pronunciation of the English word, 
sounding like a snake’s hiss in the midst of her liquid, 
Latin Quarter prattle, Bee frowned. But he nodded 
at the same time. 

“In that case, I’ll go.” 

“A bientot, alors ” 

“How soon?” 

“Midnight. Don’t be late if you want to see the 
surprise.” 

“So, there are two red-heads in this affair,” observed 
La Haquenee as the girl turned away. “Which one 
do you go to see? Dame! I believe this one would 
like to be your little cabbage.” 

“Va t’en!” mumbled Bee in his beard. “Get out 
of here before I put you out. But—leave me that 
ticket. I mightn’t be able to get another.” 

And having thus parted with the apache, who 
showed not the least offense, he pocketed the erstwhile 
despised bit of paper and gave the whole of his out¬ 
ward attention to the ordering and consumption of a 
second absinthe sucree. 


20 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

On the left bank of the Seine, ten years is an 
eternity. So Silva Jonquille, whose gorgeous locks of 
chatain clair had won for her the name of La Gadelle, 
or Red Currant, had long since ceased to pass for any¬ 
thing less than pure Parisienne. She never talked 
about her beginnings, but it was generally understood 
that she had risen from the depths. Some even pre¬ 
tended that she had been found in a Paris gutter, a 
half-naked child whom a wandering beggar picked up 
to collect sous while he posed as her father and played 
the guitar. Others thought to identify her as a figur¬ 
ante snatched from some boite of a theater on Mont¬ 
martre and launched in society to please the whim of 
a protector, who, out of pure caprice, preferred to re¬ 
main in the background. 

It was true—part of it—in spirit if not in detail. 
Silva had certainly experienced vicissitudes. She had 
been hungry, and knew what it was to be in danger 
of arrest for stealing bread. Filled with the will to 
live, she had climbed by whatever rungs fate offered, 
seizing upon anything, rejecting nothing—unless, per¬ 
haps, the most obvious thing of all. The hidden pro¬ 
tector was a myth. 

In fact, for several years now she had owed her 
position, her toilets, her salon and her private motor¬ 
car to her own extraordinary skill in reproducing the 


PARIS PREPARES TO DANCE 


21 


patterns of famous Gobelin tapestries. In the back of 
her luxurious apartment was a big, unfurnished room 
where she worked every morning. But she hid it like 
a guilty secret, chosing to pose before the world as a 
butterfly. 

It was a world peculiar to Paris, gay, elegant, and a 
sham. People having a vogue rather than a reputatiori 
made the bulk of it. There were always new faces 
there, taking the places of those that had disappeared 
and making a circle whose apparent stability was due, 
like the rainbows, to the momentary splendor of 
myriads of rapidly falling particles. In such a milieu 
no real acquaintances are made—which is the reason, 
possibly, why it was never guessed that she, its undis¬ 
puted queen, outwardly more madly frivolous than 
the rest, was American by birth, half American by 
blood, the daughter of a comfortable and eminently 
respectable home on the outskirts of Salem, Massa¬ 
chusetts. 

Julien Ferrard, her fiance, gave as little promise 
of stability as the others. Clever—that was the 
word usually used to describe him—a man of talent 
whose industry and staying-powers were yet to be 
proven. 

I’Estrange, on the contrary, was a personage. Some 
of the noblest families in Provence recognized him as 


22 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

a kinsman, and he had already achieved a conspicuous 
position among the artists of his time. This double 
advantage enabled him to mingle the upper and lower 
halves of society with a lordly and generous careless¬ 
ness. Dipping into Silva’s circle as into many others, 
always taking the best, his mansion in the old faubourg 
St. Germain excluded nobody who could boast personal 
superiority of any sort, and the invites to La Gadelle’s 
farewell dinner included not only Rougette, the model, 
but the Duchess de Fayves and the Countess de Mont- 
fayat. And the countess was actually present—a mar¬ 
vel of French republicanism at which the Anglo-Saxon 
can only gasp. 

It was a distinct promotion for La Gadelle, for not¬ 
withstanding l’Estrange’s contempt for conventions, his 
approval was like an accolade and gave a certain char¬ 
acter of authenticity to any reputation upon which it 
fell. She might have been expected to show some sense 
of satisfaction. On the contrary, it was noticed all 
during the dinner that she seemed in less than her 
usual spirits. Was it coming home to her, now when 
it was too late, that Julien was an encumbrance, and 
that she was preparing to turn her back upon Paris 
just when new doors were opening before her? Ques¬ 
tions which were certainly asked, but not answered. 
And at the earliest possible moment she gave the other 


PARIS PREPARES TO DANCE 


23 


guests an additional subject for conversation by quietly 
disappearing from their midst. 

In front of the mansion was a paved courtyard with 
a fountain, a number of century-old trees and a great 
wall rising to shut off any vulgar curiosity which might 
exist in the street. Here her host found her seated 
upon a moss-grown bench and gazing absently at the 
mass of vines which hung over the house-front like a 
theater curtain. 

“Meditating mischief!” he laughed, seating himself 
beside her. “We’re going to be treated to one of the 
Red Currant’s famous pranks.” 

“Jacques,” she broke out impulsively, “don’t let’s 
pretend. It hurts—this send-off tonight—and you 
know it.” 

“Why, I thought-” 

“You thought it would hurt less than the one I was 
likely to have if you didn’t interfere. And you’re 
right. But I don’t belong here. I was never a naked 
gamin dancing in the streets, but I’ve been worse 
things. Rich foreigners, gamblers, younger sons with¬ 
out morals or real brains—they are my sort of people.” 

“On the contrary,” he contradicted, in his most in¬ 
cisive French, “they are merely the people you persist 
in going with.” 



24 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“I have my reasons. It doesn’t matter how I behave 
among them, and they help me to get dizzy.” 

“Is that what you are after?” 

“It’s what I’ve got to have.” 

“And yet you’re planning for a nest in the country. 
Paul Fort, I understand, is already writing a pastoral 
about you, with Julien-” 

“It’s on Julien’s account that I’m going. But what 
if he doesn’t like it, Jacques? He insists on our wind¬ 
ing up tonight with the bal des Tapettes. That’s what 
worries me.” 

“I knew there was something. But why?” 

“Because I love him, if you want to know. I want 
him—his weakness, his strength, everything—just for 
myself. At the ball he’ll drink absinthe, and make me 
jealous. I’ve been ruining him.” 

She rose, stretching her arms out towards the trees 
through which the moonlight was just beginning to 
sift. 

“I want him in a place like this,” she added softly. 
“I’ve never had anything to care for all my life—except 
a parrot, once, when I was a little girl.” 

“A parrot?” 

“Yes. And I lost that.” 

L’Estrange regarded her attentively, but whether in 
simple enjoyment of the picture she made, or in an 


PARIS PREPARES TO DANCE 25 

attempt to read the depths of her soul it would have 
been difficult to say. Certainly the picture was excuse 
enough. Her gown, of a tawny shade in the daytime, 
showed pure white in the moonlight, giving her the 
look of a statue. Her features, however, were far too 
expressive for marble—the dark brown eyes especially, 
with a disturbing yellow glint visible in them even now. 
There was something of the same tigerish quality about 
her hair, hanging loosely caught in carefully calcu¬ 
lated negligee about her shoulders—that too abundant 
hair of chatain clair . 

“Sometimes I feel as if I were two persons,” she 
said, abruptly returning to her place. “Julien—he 
should be careful of me. I don’t understand the feel¬ 
ings that come to me sometimes. I must certainly 
bury myself in the country. It’s the only salvation 
for either of us. Love is what I’ve needed. And if 
love fails me-” 

“Stop it!” protested l’Estrange in the tone of a 
physician addressing a hysterical patient. 

But he was arrested by a stream of light coming 
through an opened door. 

“Silva! You little cat, where are you?” called a 
voice, as a young man, limping slightly yet showing 
abundant vigor in all his movements, came down the 
house steps into the yard. 



26 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

It was Julien Ferrard, dressed in conventional eve¬ 
ning clothes save for a soft felt hat that was perched 
jauntily on one side of his head. 

“Oh, there you are!” he went on, catching sight of 
her. “I’ve a surprise. Rougette has asked me to take 
part with her in the grande entree at the Bouiller. I’m 
to be—but that’s the surprise. 

“Hello, l’Estrange. I was looking for you, too. Will 
you please see that Silva gets there in time? Say a 
little after eleven-thirty. I must run right off and 
dress.” 

Silva got up and took hold of the lapels of her lover’s 
coat, as if to adjust them but in reality to look into 
his eyes. He was laboring under considerable excite¬ 
ment, there could be no doubt of that. 

“What a boy!” she exclaimed when he had gone. 
“See how stirred up he is at the prospect of being in a 
tableau.” 

“Yes, a tableau with Rougette Picot, one of my—one 
of everybody’s models.” 

“There, I knew it! You don’t like Julien.” 

“Do you?” The painter turned suddenly to face 
her. “Do you really think he is worth all this?” 

“Ah, you don’t mean that, you can’t! But you see 
I had reason when I said that I dreaded the ball.” 


PARIS PREPARES TO DANCE 27 

What would she have said could she have known 
what was to happen there? What did she say? That 
was a question which came to engage all Paris for 
many and many a day. 


CHAPTER II 


MASKS AND MURDER 

A hall, prodigiously long and wide in proportion to 
its height, with a gallery running along beneath the 
eaves of a peaked, open-timbered roof—these are the 
ordinary features of the interior of the Bouiller danc¬ 
ing-establishment. But on the night of the bal des 
Tapettes, a cone-shaped pavilion of stalls, or boxes, 
rose in the center of the floor space. Boxes on a 
slightly raised platform also bordered the walls; and 
behind them, masked by gorgeous curtains, numerous 
narrow and complicated passages led to refreshment- 
rooms, booths, privacy and all the accommodations 
necessary for the housing of a combined Saturnalia 
and fair. 

What first struck the eye was the profusion of ban¬ 
ners, wreaths and colored paper lanterns, the banks of 
massed spectators and the whirling mob of capri¬ 
ciously costumed merry-makers, which, at eleven 
o’clock, already had possession of the floor. Electric 

globes—here white, there green or red, added to the 

28 


MASKS AND MURDER 


29 

general sense of dazzling confusion and made it diffi¬ 
cult for the mind to grasp any details. 

From behind artificial palms at either end of the 
ball, jazz bands were playing—one a tango and the 
other an old-fashioned hesitation waltz. The warring 
strains met and mingled in the neighborhood of the pa¬ 
vilion, where they were half drowned by laughter and 
the babble of voices. The time of the grande entree 
of the official hosts of the evening not having yet 
arrived, the world in general and its nether hemi¬ 
sphere in particular were making the most of the in¬ 
terval. 

“I think it’s simply great!” said a voice, speaking 
English in a clear, girlish tone that cut through the 
surrounding French patois and Parisian argot like the 
notes of a flute. 

She was one of a group of three standing in front 
of a pavilion-box not two feet from where Tardieu and 
his companion had temporarily halted. 

“Don’t let’s settle down yet,” she went on. “I want 
to dance.” 

“It isn’t as bad as I expected,” admitted a capable- 
looking woman, who held the girl’s arm within her 
own. “And since your father would let you come, I 
fervently hope it won’t get any worse. But who in 
the world would you dance with?” 


30 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“Here is papa,” said the girl tentatively. 

A ruddy-faced party with a bald head, a tuft of 
whiskers protruding from his chin, turned towards the 
speaker. 

“Gad, I’d like to, Millie! But you know I never 
learned anything but the Scottish hornpipe and the 
Virginia reel, and I wouldn’t dare tackle either one of 
them things here.” 

“Eben!” exclaimed the woman. “Is it possible that 
you’re learnin’ to swear?” 

Eben winked at his daughter. 

“When you’re in Rome do as the Romans do, ma. 
And I was only tryin’ to get to understand these ani¬ 
mals before you wade in and reform ’em.” 

“This is the sort of thing I object to,” muttered 
the chief of police in the judge’s ear. “You see this 
family? Americans, of course. We Parisians will 
simply corrupt them and send them home without 
ideals. The daughter’s head is turned already.” 

But Tardieu had stepped forward and, was ad¬ 
dressing the mother in such English as he could recall 
from his student days. 

“Pardon me, madame. Mats —did I hear your 
daughter say she wanted a partner? I am not exactly 
of the official committee-” 

“Then what are you speakin’ to us for?” 



MASKS AND MURDER 


3i 


The challenge was so abrupt that Tardieu’s Anglo- 
Saxon speech deserted him. But he had the presence 
of mind to reach into a pocket and produce his card. 

“A judge of something—or is it school-teacher?” 
she read out. “It says ‘instruction.’ ” 

“Madame , not so loud if you please. I am an exam¬ 
ining magistrate, and my duty compels me to be here 
in a private character. But if your daughter seeks to 
be able to say that she danced at this ball, without 
doubt she will find herself more willing to go home 
if-” 

“Do let me, ma—just one turn. It will make the 
girls green with envy when they hear of it.” 

And without waiting for a response, the speaker ex¬ 
tended her arms and permitted herself to be borne 
away into the rhythmic swirl of the hesitation, though 
there was more swirl than rhythm about it until they 
had made their way a considerable distance towards 
one of the bands. 

“Are you really a judge?” she asked, her attention 
released by the growing distinctness of the tune. “Or 
was that what you call —blague is the word, isn’t it?” 

“I really am, sans blague” 

“Then I don’t suppose you came exactly for the 
purpose of rescuing young ladies from their par¬ 
ents?” 



32 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“No; I had a whim to scandalize one of my col¬ 
leagues.” 

“Oh!” 

She laughed, but still with a pleasant, silvery quality 
of tone. And when Tardieu asked for her name, she 
replied expansively: 

“Millie Granger, from Salem, Mass., U. S. A. And 
that’s my father and mother, naturally, that I’m with. 
At home I go alone everywhere, but Paris is supposed 
to be wicked—though I can’t see anything wicked 
about it.” 

“I hope you never will,” Tardieu interjected. “Your 
people are right, however. This isn’t the place for 
you, and I’m going to try to frighten them into taking 
you home.” 

“Not before the grande entree. 

“Immediately after, then. There are a lot of roughs 
behind these masks.” 

Tardieu, in fact, was waking up to the conscious¬ 
ness of having committed an indiscretion, and that to 
continue dancing would be sheer foolishness. Twice 
already he had heard himself called judge—once 
by Millie Granger and once by her mother. It 
was time to get rid of this partner, whose simple 
dress and untarnished young face made her so con¬ 
spicuous. 


MASKS AND MURDER 


33 

Nor was the judge’s uneasiness without foundation. 
A public bal masque is one vast ambush of unob¬ 
served eyes and of unnoticed ears, especially in Paris 
where is still the Latin habit of being always on the 
lookout for bits of information likely to be useful in 
the endless intrigues which lie behind nearly every 
event. At the very moment when he was presenting 
his card to Mrs. Granger, a group of clowns with gro¬ 
tesquely comic faces had been passing at his elbow, 
and one of them had caught at least a part of the 
mother’s exclamation. 

“Did you get that, Vol-au-Vent?” 

“Get what?” 

“The stiff looking type in a black domino—the old 
one called him judge.” 

“Let her. I was looking at the little one. Qu’elle a 
des beaux yeux —and just out of the nursery. If she’s 
staying, I think I’ll try my luck—eh, Haquenee?” 

“Then I wouldn’t begin by calling names,” said the 
clown thus addressed. “If he’s a judge, though, I can 
guess the rest.” 

“Who do you think it was, then?” 

“Him?” Haquenee paused until his companions had 
gathered close around, then uttered the word just above 
a whisper: 

“Tardieu! What other judge in Paris is human 


34 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID v 

enough? Useful thing to know. Suppose, now, we 
just scatter and keep our mouths shut?” 

The fun waxed over more fast and furious, but still 
preserved a certain decency and restraint. Grotesque 
creatures of all shapes and sizes pranced about—stilt¬ 
legged giraffes, harmless elephants composed of straw 
and bed-ticking, now and then a dragon belching Greek 
fire yet having at its heart nothing more serious than 
a party of young men, tfreir legs imperfectly hidden by 
draperies. 

After a clown had come and beat her over the head 
with a toy balloon, Millie Granger was quite ready to 
enter the box where her parents had seated themselves. 
But she treated Tardieu to a little moue of defiance as 
he launched a parting warning. 

“Thought I’d just tell that young thing she ought 
to be at home,” he said, rejoining Balai in the shelter 
of a bunch of floral decorations at the base of a pillar. 

“No doubt you convinced her,” came the ironical 
reply. 

But the absence of malice in the chief’s tone showed 
that the intoxication of all this hilarious noise—this 
interplay of color, this incessant contest between two 
dance tunes, and the nearness of so much beauty, gen¬ 
uine and otherwise—was beginning to tell even upon 
his prosaic disposition. 


MASKS AND MURDER 


35 


“What now?” he added. “It’s getting quiet.” 

“Yes, the bands are retiring to come in with the 
parade. I wish that girl would go home. Have you 
noticed how many clowns there are about? Some of 
them look familiar, and I shouldn’t wonder-” 

Tardieu broke off, for the silence had become abso¬ 
lute as the united bands began the great circuit of the 
hall. They were marching with an exaggerated lifting 
of the feet, evidently a take-off on the German goose- 
step, but the feet had been provided with felt slippers 
and made no noise. The horn-blowers puffed their 
cheeks, the clarinet players worked rapidly with the 
keys of their instruments, and the drummers seemed 
to be pounding with all their strength—in vain. None 
of the blows took effect, not a note came from any of 
the horns. Energetic, red-faced, with evidence of hard 
musical labor in every gesture, the band emitted not a 
sound. 

For a moment the spectators watched in astonished 
surprise. Then the absurdity of the pantomime went 
home and the very rafters shook with the echoes of 
side-splitting, childish laughter. 

It was soon quiet again, after the band there fol¬ 
lowed—at first nothing at all. A long strip of bare 
dancing-floor upon which nobody ventured to intrude 



36 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

lay as if it had been a ribbon which the musicians had 
unrolled in their wake. Then from the far end of the 
hall an unorganized troupe of men, women and chil¬ 
dren, of all ages and in various stages of raggedness, 
frumpiness, or gaudy poverty wandered nonchalantly 
forward. 

It was a spectacle worth seeing—the professional 
models of Paris in their ordinary street clothes, chat¬ 
tering with each other, puffing cigarettes, nibbling at 
brioches and carelessly emptying bottles of beer down 
their throats. Pathetic, too, it soon was felt. For here 
was the miserable raw material out of which most of 
the art of the present was being made. 

But as soon as the round was complete, this same 
rabble began to reappear, all splendid in fine feathers. 
They were now in groups posed upon floats propelled 
slowly forwards by invisible means—groups that coun¬ 
terfeited pictures and statuary by famous masters, 
beginning with the primitives and running down 
through the various schools. 

The first, caricaturing a religious subject, had its 
mockery so subtly hidden that many looked upon it 
as a work of serious beauty. But with each epoch the 
burlesque grew stronger, until it became frankly comic. 
Just as surely the comic passed into the grotesque. 
What was art coming to? And to make the prospect 


MASKS AND MURDER 37 

more uncertain, the illumination was growing more 
and more dim. 

It seemed like an illusion at first. But the lowering 
of the lights was a fact. Scarcely seen, the monsters 
looked more monstrous than ever, and finally only their 
vague outlines were visible, allowing the imagination 
full liberty to turn them into nightmares. 

Then came darkness, complete and awful, prolong¬ 
ing itself until everyone expected the next instant to 
be punctuated by some disturbance. Yet nobody 
moved or said a word. It was so still that the place 
seemed to have emptied itself—as though the ball were 
only an evil dream, and the dreamer, hypnotized, 
had passed abruptly into a deeper and dreamless 
sleep. 

Evidently the managers of this frolic were the sad¬ 
dest sort of wags, and capable psychologists to boot. 
For just as the silence had stretched itself to the 
breaking point, the lights blazed up, no longer tinted 
but blindingly white. 

Yells, groans, hisses and bravos broke from the spec¬ 
tators, compelled to shade their eyes and to discover 
only after a momentary fit of blindness exactly what 
new surprise had been arranged. 

It was a surprise calculated to make old-timers re¬ 
call the Latin Quarter license of pre-war days. The 


38 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

monsters had drawn themselves up to protect the rib¬ 
bon of empty floor. And between these double lines, no 
longer upon the floats—which had disappeared—but 
with their naked feet upon the boards, stood all the 
beautiful models of Paris posing exactly as they 
posed every day in the privileged privacy of its 
studios. 

This was but a frame. The semblance of an enor¬ 
mous turtle came crawling down the center of the 
ribbon. Upon its back was a playing fountain, copied 
from one of the famous fountains at Versailles, with a 
white horse prancing at each of its corners. 

Nobody paid any attention to the fountain, however. 
The shouts which broke out as it passed were for the 
women rising from the water of its basin, caught in 
the tentacles of a huge devil-fish, or squid. 

It was Rougette Picot, as motionless as if turned to 
stone, a look of frozen agony upon her face, her hair 
draped in all its metallic luster about her nude, white 
shoulders 

Everybody recognized the composition. It was one 
which had been exhibited by FEstrange at the last 
salon, where it had made a sensation. But that 
was nothing to the sensation created by its model 
now. 

Upon two people, however, “The Struggle of Inno- 


MASKS AND MURDER 39 

cence ” as it was called, produced a different effect. 

One of these was a stout, bearded man, wearing no 
disguise and therefore clearly recognizable by any who 
might chance to know such a poor devil as he appar¬ 
ently was—the very Flamand Bee who had been mood¬ 
ily courting the “green muse” at La Rotonde an hour 
or so before. Seemingly he had taken more alcohol 
than was good for him, for at the sight of the fountain 
and its human center-piece, he began to mutter such 
oaths and imprecations that those in his neghborhood 
hastened to shut him up. 

The other malcontent was Silva Jonquille, in one of 
the pavilion-boxes with l’Estrange. 

“I don’t wonder it displeases you,” said the painter, 
bending from a chair immediately behind her as she 
shrugged her shoulders. 

“The picture? It is beautiful. I’ve often told you 
so. I—I was thinking of something else.” 

This was true enough. She was thinking of the 
man who must be concealed behind the inflated rubber 
hideousness of the devil-fish. Poor Julien! Was he 
really infatuated with that brazen woman, that cheap- 
counterfeit—albeit a youthful one—of herself? If the 
scene they were representing should be turned into 
allegory, it might be the female who was supplied 


40 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

with tentacles. Anyway, he was going away from Paris 
now—if only it wasn’t too late. 

“I detest this sort of thing,” continued l’Estrange. 
“And as for the painting, they have completely inverted 
the spirit of it.” 

“Look!” interrupted Silva. “They are going to 
dance.” 

“Yes, and the lights are being dimmed again.” 

Both remarks were justified. The lights were un¬ 
doubtedly lowering, and Rougette, released from the 
clinging tentacles, had bounded lightly from the foun¬ 
tain to begin the steps of le Passetto —a new valse 
espagnole, the tune of which was streaming unctuously 
from the united bands. 

The Squid started to scramble after her, but only 
landed on one of the horses; and then seeming to 
lose his balance altogether, went from the back of 
the terrified animal to the boards with a realistic 
sprawl. 

Rewarded by a round of applause, he slowly as¬ 
sumed a human posture, took several steps—awkward 
ones and marked by an exaggerated limp—and threw 
his eight arms about the expectant model. This was 
the signal for the other masqueraders—those, at least, 
who had the patience to wait. What ensued was a 
kaleidoscopic mingling of beauty and monstrosity, 


MASKS AND MURDER 


4i 


every couple swaying to the beat of one of the most 
voluptuous melodies ever composed. 

And now came an unprogrammed incident—a second 
extinguishing of the already waning lights. Cries of 
impatience rose from the crowd, half of whom were 
preparing to go home, and a single shriek cutting like 
a knife through the duller grumbling passed with most 
as an outburst of hysteria. Tardieu and his compan¬ 
ion, the chief, knew better as, without a word, they 
began to fight their way forwards. 

When they reached her, Rougette was lying prostrate 
upon the floor where she had been dancing, and a final 
spasmodic movement of her muscles, urging her body 
over the smooth, wax surface, uncovered a red stain. 
This much was visible in the light of matches which 
were now being struck all over the hall. But so 
quickly did the two officials succeed in having the girl 
removed to an anteroom that not more than a score of 
persons noticed anything wrong, and many of these 
left the ball with the idea that the belle of the 
fountain had merely fainted from the fatigue of her 
pose. 

She had not fainted, Rougette was dead, struck by 
some weapon no longer in evidence. 

And where was Julien Ferrard, who had openly an¬ 
nounced his intention of joining her when he left 


42 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

l’Estrange’s? He was not to be seen, nor was there 
any such creature as a devil fish among the grotesques 
now moving gayly beneath the quickly restored lights 
to a repetition of le Pas sett o. 



CHAPTER III 

THE MISERICORDE 

In France, a juge d’instruction is without jurisdic¬ 
tion until formally assigned to a case. But Tardieu, 
refusing to be bound by red tape, had his preliminary 
investigation in full swing long before his authority 
arrived. 

There was an incredible audacity about the crime 
which instinct warned him was but the bait for some 
trap into which he and the chief were expected to fall. 
Appearances had been craftily planned, therefore were 
to be distrusted. But in order even to distrust them it 
was necessary first of all to find out what they were. 
So a medecin legiste (official physician) was sent for 
to probe the wound, and the taking of evidence began. 

A good many citizens soon made the discovery that, 
no matter how apparently care-free the occasion, plain¬ 
clothes-men —inspecteurs de la Surety as they used to 
be called—are always present, ready to take a hand. 
A tap on the shoulder, a whisper in the ear, a momen- 
43 


44 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

tary display of a badge hidden beneath some frivolous 
costume was usually sufficient, and the person wanted 
would find himself discreetly conducted from the ball¬ 
room by a narrow corridor as cheerless as the Bridge 
of Sighs. 

The court-room was a cubicle fitted up for the sale 
of confetti and serpentine, heaps of which now lay on 
the floor. And the two magistrates—seated in what 
was to have been the sales-girPs booth—might have 
passed for members of the Venetian Counsel of Ten, 
so incongruous was Justice in a domino in such a place, 
even though the domino hood had been pushed back 
hastily from the face. Behind a cloth partition at 
their back lay the body. Through a curtain in front 
came the sounds of the fete, which was progressing as 
if nothing had happened. And it was from witnesses 
still dazed by being plucked suddenly from the midst 
of merry-making that they learned the following curi¬ 
ous details: 

Rougette, just before everything went dark, had 
paused in her dance and said something to The Squid 
which he appeared not to catch, and he had bent to¬ 
wards her—only to receive a box on the ear. A playful 
box, “un coup de poing badin” as one witness ex¬ 
pressed it. 


THE MISERICORDE 


45 


Whereupon he had caught her to him and kissed her, 
she resisting, some said. Others would have it that her 
resistance was a feint, a coquettish turning aside of her 
head after her arms were already about his neck. 

With the failure of the lights she was heard to laugh, 
and to cry out, “Le pari!” that is to say “The bet!” 
though some were not quite certain of the word. It 
was agreed, however, that she had then leaped back 
with a shrill scream and gone staggering to her knees 
and finally to the floor, clutching at her breast. A 
-man in the vicinity lighting a match for a cigarette— 
and not to see what had happened, he declared—had 
made this much of the action clear. 

But to the continually repeated question: “Did you 
see him strike her?—was there a weapon in his hand?” 
the answer invariably came: 

“Non, m’sieu le juge, rien.” 

Rien —absolutely nothing. Here was a vacancy in 
the evidence which could not be filled. 

Equally remarkable was the continued absence of 
The Squid masquerader. The inspectors of the police 
had started on the trail without waiting for orders, but 
all they could discover was a few witnesses who had 
or thought they had seen him fleeing from the ball¬ 
room. The testimony in this connection was bizarre, 


46 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

and to the effect that he had pushed his way through 
the dancers like one out of his wits —seeming to shrink 
as he went. 

Quite a number swore to this circumstance, though 
those who had observed the latter part of his flight 
just before all trace of him was lost, were not positive 
that it was really The Squid, one even saying that it 
was “more like a mermaid.” 

“Then it might have been some frightened woman?” 
snapped Balai. 

“It might have been anything, m’sieu le chef. One 
could not see much with only a few lighted matches 
to help. But I know how it made me 1661.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“It gave me goose-flesh.” 

“Superstitious nonsense!” 

Balai turned towards one of his subordinates, who 
had entered holding a small object carefully wrapped 
in his handkerchief. Tardieu was in consultation with 
the m&edecin legiste. 

“The doctor says it looks like a very narrow knife 
wound, probably extending through the left ventricle,” 
he announced as the physician retired. “There’s some¬ 
thing that puzzles him, I should judge, and he’s going 
deeper. But what have you there?” 


THE MISERICORDE 


47 


“The knife that did it.” 

Balai indicated a tiny, red-stained blade which now 
lay on the table-like counter of the booth. 

“It was on the floor where she fell,” volunteered the 
inspecteur. 

“Then why didn’t you find it sooner?” 

“Because, m’sieu le juge, it was hidden in the saw¬ 
dust which the management has thrown over the spot 
to hide the-” 

“We understand,” the chief cut in. “All say she 
clutched at something. It must have been this. She 
drew it from the wound with her own hands, and drop¬ 
ped it. Everything is going splendidly.” 

“Like the rapids above a waterfall,” agreed Tardieu, 
who feared above all things to fall upon some obvious 
but deceptive trail, along which the stubborn, practical 
nature of the chief would be certain to try to force the 
inquiry. 

“In the first place,” he went on, as the inspecteur 
saluted and went out, “we’ve got a dozen different de¬ 
scriptions of The Squid, if any of them are his.” 

“That won’t matter, Judge, when we’ve found out 
who was seen to get into the costume.” 

“Hm! Do you fancy he had witnesses?” 

“Somebody must have seen him. And here’s the 
knife.” 



48 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“Yes, a knife which she clutched and drew out, you 
say. But there’s nothing to clutch it by. It has no 
handle.” 

“It has had one. Here are traces of sealing-wax. 
The handle has come off, that’s all.” 

“Then where is it?” 

“I’ll find it,” promised Balai. 

“Probably you will,” admitted the judge, taking out 
a pocket magnifier. “But your sealing-wax out to be 
lead, especially since—yes, I thought so. This thing’s 
a misericorde. 1 * 

“A what?” 

“ Toignard of pity,’ some call it—a dagger formerly 
used to give the coup de grace to a wounded knight, 
and made so as to slip between two plates of armor— 
or to pry them apart if necessary. Here’s the whole 
operation beautifully engraved.” 

Balai took the proffered lens and bent over \yhat 
he had passed at first as a mere patch of delicate 
scratches. 

“Better and better 1” he chuckled. “This is almost 
as good as a fingerprint. There can’t be two such 
knives in the world.” 

“That’s just the trouble. A misericorde , the very 
essence of which is substantial construction, patched 
together with sealing-wax. A misericorde ought to 


THE MISERICORDE 


49 

tape like a needle—this one, you’ll observe, has a 
double point. Now what could possess a murderer to 
go out of his way to make things so easy for us?” 

“A question which I am willing to leave to you—and 
to the court of assizes before which you will soon be 
holding him to appear,” said Balai, rising. “I think 
I’ll go have a talk with the medical expert.” 

Tardieu sighed. He knew he could look for no 
sympathy in the midst of perplexities of the sort that 
were beginning to assail him—that his energetic col¬ 
league would take special delight in collecting a mass 
of evidence against which nothing could be alleged but 
its psychological impossibility. And here was another 
figure—a clown’s—sticking its head between the 
shoulders of the guards at the doorway. 

“Can I come in, ni’sicu le juge Tardieu?” 

“But I fancy you’ve already been ordered to.” 

“You wrong me,” complained the intruder, laying 
aside his false face of papier-mache as he advanced. 
“If one of your flics was after me I didn’t know it.” 

“Then why are you here, Haquenee? As an apache 
you’re not in the habit of paying social calls on the 
judiciary, I suppose?” 

“Since you know me, Judge, you ought to know that 
I’ve given up all that.” 

“Once an apache always an apache.” 


50 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“Par exemple! You wouldn’t say so if I was in 
trouble. But some says there’s been a knife found.” 

“Ah, ha! Le chantage —a chance to bleed some 
friend through the nose.” 

“Would I dare, Your Honor, under your nose? But 
I’ve always paid attention to knives, and if you was to 
give me a look at it-” 

“Tut, tut! Your eyes haven’t been off it since you 
came in. Is there anything you want to say?” 

“Not if it’s that little toad-sticker there in front of 
you, I hadn’t noticed it before, Judge, honest I hadn’t.” 

“But now that you have?” 

“Par exemple! I wouldn’t like to talk about it. 
Never belonged to anybody in my set.” 

Tardieu bit his lip, vexed to find himself more in 
sympathy with this jarceur, obviously startled out of 
his sangfroid by the sight of such an unusual weapon, 
than with the vigorous routine methods of the chief of 
police. 

But his reflections were interrupted by the arrival 
of a very pretty young lady, a bald-headed man and a 
stout woman of an aggressive respectability. The 
young lady was smiling, the man merely sputtering; 
but the elder woman would probably have succeeded 
in not arriving at all had not an officer made bold to 
propel her forcibly whenever her demonstrations with 




THE MISERICORDE 


Si 

the terrible ferrule of the umbrella with which she was 
armed gave him a chance. 

“Take me to Judge Tardieu,” she kept demanding. 
“I didn’t much like the ways of him when we met, 
but he’d never let us be treated like this.” 

“Mrs. Granger! A thousand pardons. Let go of 
her, you men. This is a most-” 

“Why, ma, it is Judge Tardieu! I told you it was 
just some joke.” 

“A most unfortunate mistake,” persisted his honor. 
“For the life of me I don’t see how it happened.” 

“She was in a box opposite the murder,” began one 
of her captors defensively, in French. “We couldn’t 
understand her lingo, and-” 

“Yes, yes. It’s all right. But leave me to deal with 
her.” 

“What does it mean?” Mrs. Granger broke in, 
again getting her breath. “Can’t an honest woman 
attend one of your indecent balls with her husband 
and daughter and not have a lot of roughs hustle her 
about?” 

“They were policemen, madame.” 

“I told you so!” cried Granger importantly. “I 
suppose somebody has lost a pocketbook, and just be¬ 
cause we’re foreigners we’re suspected-” 





52 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“You’re suspected of nothing. But one of the en¬ 
tertainers-” 

“Humph!” Mrs. Granger sniffed. “That brazen 
hussy dancin’ with the fish was taken sick—I heard 
some English people say so. But I don’t see-” 

“She is dead,” Tardieu corrected. “That’s my ex¬ 
cuse for bringing in everybody who might have noticed 
how it happened.” 

Another group was entering, but the judge, failing 
to perceive this, continued: 

“You’d better take your daughter home at once. 
And all of you kindly accept my apologies.” 

“Dead! ” said Mrs. Granger in a new voice. “There’s 
something funny about this. You wouldn’t bring folks 
here just to see how she was taken sick.” 

“Quite right. The girl was stabbed.” 

There was the rustle of a skirt as a woman among 
the new-comers slid suddenly to the floor. Ma Granger 
became at once a bustling bundle of solicitude. 

“The poor dear!” she exclaimed, kneeling down by 
the prostrate figure. “She must understand English, 
and you’ve frightened her by your talk. Get me some 
water, some of you. Don’t stand there and—why, I 
know her! Millie, come here. It’s that girl I saw in 
the other box.” 

“You know her, madame?” asked the chief, who had 


THE MISERICORDE 


53 

returned unperceived. “That is interesting, for I hap¬ 
pen to know her myself.” 

“Who doesn’t know Miss Jonquille?” retorted Tar- 
dieu. “Here’s another blunder—unless she came vol¬ 
untarily.” 

“Miss Jonquille?” repeated Mrs. Granger. “This is 
Silva Marx. She grew up in my own town, and many’s 
the time I’ve wondered what became of her after she 
ran away to Europe. Look here under her hair. That’s 
the scar she got from her brother throwin’ a sharp 
stone at her when she was a baby—don’t you remem¬ 
ber, Eben?” 

“It does look like the Marx girl. But it’s been so 
long now that I can’t be sure.” 

“Well, I can. And she’s cornin’ to. Judge, this dress 
looks as if she must live in the country. If she hasn’t 
any place near to go to-” 

“She has plenty of places,” it was Balai who inter¬ 
rupted. “A Breton peasant costume doesn’t signify 
—at a masquerade. But the juge d’instruction would 
like your own address.” 

Tardieu frowned. Was there anything save a desire 
to be annoying behind this open reminder of his duty? 
Was it a hint that an attempt to protect anyone what¬ 
ever from the poisonous breath of a police investiga¬ 
tion would be met with resistance? There was no tell- 



54 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

ing. He knew and liked La Gadelle, but it was easy to 
see that his friendship, if openly expressed, was apt 
to prove dangerous. And here was the entrance cur¬ 
tain lifting again to admit another acquaintance— 
l’Estrange. 

The judge, a passionate art connoisseur, esteemed 
painters more than he did lawyers or even women. In¬ 
deed, he had been heard on more than one occasion to 
say that a single canvas by l’Estrange was worth the 
whole Code Napoleon. Was this infernal investiga¬ 
tion going to be a holocaust of the privacy of all his 
friends? 

But for once Balai too was impressed—not by the 
artist, it is true, but by the nobleman—and leaving 
the Bench stepped forward to inquire politely: 

“Is there any way we can serve you, m’sieu?” 

“I am looking for Miss Jonquille,” PEstrange re¬ 
turned. “We were walking together through the crowd 
just now when we got separated and-” 

“She is here,” interrupted Tardieu, pointing. 

“What! She is ill?” 

“A trifling indisposition. Would you be good enough 
to see that she gets home?” 

“I shall take her in my carriage at once.” 

And stooping down, the painter lifted the slowly re- 


THE MISERICORDE 55 

covering woman in his arms and bore her tenderly 
away. 

“And now what?” asked the judge, when the room 
had finally been cleared. 

Balai, who was examining a heap of tangled material 
which had been thrown on the table before him, slowly 
raised his head. 

“Something important at last. Here’s The Squid 
costume. An inspecteur just brought it in. What do 
you think of it?” 

“Thin rubber,” muttered Tardieu, bending over the 
rubbish. 

“Yes, you know they told us he shrank as he ran. 
The tentacles must have broken in the press and de¬ 
flated almost to nothing.” 

“I suppose so. And there’s little else to it but a 
steel frame to keep certain parts in shape. Very sim¬ 
ple and ingenious. But it doesn’t look as if it were all 
here.” 

“It isn’t. This was found caught on a nail—that’s 
why he abandoned it. But here comes the midecin 
legiste” 

The physician, in fact, had completed his prelim¬ 
inary labors and was carrying before him a sheet of 
paper upon which lay a small double-triangle of solid 
steel. 


56 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“Voila!” he gloated. “This is what I found on prob¬ 
ing the wound.” 

Balai, now in the best of humors, rubbed his hands. 

“You see, Judge, even the double point to the 
misericorde is explained. Our man must have stabbed 
her just before anybody struck a match—consequently 
no one observed him. And the knife broke off in the 
wound.” 

“It isn’t broken off,” ventured the physician, com¬ 
paring the bit with the rest of the poignard. “It’s been 
made to fit. Looks to me as if the blade had once been 
badly nicked and then mended instead of being ground 
down.” 

“Broken or loosened, it makes no difference. Are 
you ready, Judge, to have the body removed?” 

Tardieu signified assent, and sat on for a long while 
after the others had gone, listening to the sounds of the 
ball roaring to ever greater heights of festivity beyond 
his retreat. For the first time in his life he felt the 
growing weight of his years. The careless, good-na¬ 
tured cynicism which had endeared him to another gen¬ 
eration of Parisians was out of harmony with the un¬ 
imaginative, business-like ways of the present. There 
was in many quarters a deepening conviction that he 
was a dreamer, and suddenly it came over him that 
rumor was right. 


THE MISERICORDE 


57 


Balai already had a complete working theory of the 
crime. The Picot woman had been stabbed by a 
masquerader carrying a fancy dagger. It only re¬ 
mained now to trace the ownership of the blade and 
to arrest the man who had been seen to put on that 
particular mask. But none of this evidence impressed 
the judge’s sense of reality. He felt that he was but 
groping over the deceptive surface of things. Why? 
Obviously because his sense of reality was a wayward 
faculty, of which he could give no logical account. 

“At the same time,” he mused, half aloud, “a knife 
with a loose handle is odd, and one with a loose point 
and a loose handle is preposterous. Balai may go 
ahead and clear up the whole matter to everybody’s 
satisfaction, but he’ll be wrong. The deuce of it is, 
I’ll have to acquiesce —unless I can dig some facts up 
of my own.” 


CHAPTER IV 


THE EX-KING TAKES A HAND 

Silva revived slowly, but was able to walk without 
assistance by the time l’Estrange’s car stopped in front 
of her residence—an apartment in one of the new 
studio buildings on the boulevard Raspail whose heav¬ 
ily respectable fagades seem to belong to Vienna rather 
than to Paris. 

“Don’t bother to come up,” she protested, when 
her escort stood beside her at the vestibule. “I’ll be 
all right now.” 

“Of course you will,” he assented. “A shock—it’s 
nothing serious.” 

“You don’t know what has happened, Jacques.” 

“Yes, I do. The police are very discreet, but I have 
eyes and ears.” 

“Then why do you say it’s not serious? You know 
what he said in the garden.” 

“Ferrard? He said he was going to be in a tableau 
with Rougette.” 

“And now this has happened.” Silva began to 

SB 


THE EX-KING TAKES A HAND 59 

tremble as her mind started once more over the route 
which it had been following ever since overhearing 
those dreadful words of the magistrate, “the girl was 
stabbed.” 

L’Estrange patted her hand. 

“We don’t know how it happened, Silva. Nobody 
has connected his name with it yet. Perhaps he didn’t 
say to anybody else what he said to us. And the 
secret is safe with me.” 

“No, no, it can’t be a secret. He’ll have been seen 
in the dressing-rooms. The truth is bound to come 
out.” 

“We don’t know that we want to keep it from coming 
out. Let’s discover first what the truth is.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Silva paused in the act of putting a key into the 
night-catch, and—swaying a little—permitted herself 
to be assisted to a seat on the steps. Before her lay 
the boulevard, broad, well-kept and empty. 

“What are you hinting at?” she repeated, a wild 
note in her voice. 

“Simply that we’re not certain of anything yet— 
not even that Ferrard was at the ball. He expressed 
an intention to be there, but a thousand things might 
have prevented him from going.” 

“I never thought of that! Of course he wasn’t 


60 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

there. It was somebody else who went in his place. 

Julien wouldn’t hurt a fly. But if we only had some 

evidence.” 

“You’ve just given some. As you say, he wouldn’t 
hurt a fly. If it had been Julien behind that mask, 
nothing would have happened.” 

“Yet what could have kept him from the ball?” 

“A thousand things—a quarrel with Rougette for 
instance.” 

“Ah, if they had a quarrel I’m not so sure. That 
sort of a woman drives a man mad sometimes just by 
inviting him on and then denying him.” 

“I don’t believe, Silva, that Rougette was much 
given to denying herself to anybody—or that Julien 
would have especially cared.” 

“You don’t know her. She’s a coquette, and lately 
she’s been imitating me.” 

“Yes, I’ve noticed that. But what would the imi¬ 
tation matter to Ferrard when he had the original?” 

“I don’t know, she may have made him jealous. I’ve 
heard that she’s been making eyes at a beastly sort 
of a man that hangs about the quartier —a would-be 
painter. Bee, I think his name is.” 

“Nonsense! It could have amounted to no more 
than pique. One doesn’t kill a common model even to 


THE EX-KING TAKES A HAND 61 

keep her from another man. That’s a compliment 
reserved for serious women.” 

“Is it, Jacques? And yet I was jealous of her— 
seriously jealous. I could almost have killed her my¬ 
self when I saw her there before everybody with her 
arms around him. It came over me like a dark cloud. 
What if-” 

“What if what?” 

“What if I did kill her?” 

“What if you had killed her, you mean?” 

“No, no. What if it was I?” 

“You are raving. You-” 

“Listen, Jacques. You remember how we were sit¬ 
ting at the ball?” 

“Of course—in one of the pavilion boxes. But-” 

“Wait! You were sitting directly behind me, and 
we were so far around to one side that we could hardly 
see Rougette when she first got off the float. But she 
moved forward until she was almost in front of us. 
And there was nothing between me and the dancing- 
floor but a short flight of empty wooden steps. And 
it was getting dark.” 

“What of it? You don’t expect me to believe-” 

“Let me finish. When I saw her with Julien beside 
her, a cloud came over me, as I’ve said. And the next 
thing I knew I was in that little room listening to Judge 




62 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

Tardieu tell how she had been stabbed. I fainted, 

and-” 

“It was enough to make any woman faint. You’re 
still overcome with the shock, Silva. Let me get 
you in.” 

“Not yet. You said something to me about the 
tableau, you recollect, when Rougette first came on. 
Then we stopped talking. Naturally you were watch¬ 
ing the performance. Now tell me, when did you miss 
me first?” 

“It was after Rougette screamed.” 

“Maybe it was. But you hadn’t been noticing me 
for several minutes.” 

“I don’t know as I’d noticed you-” 

“You hadn’t, for I crept down those steps and across 
the floor —before she screamed ” 

“No, Silva— after. You did go down the steps. I 
followed you through the crowd and nearly caught up 
to you before you disappeared into the ante-room. I 
told the judge that you were with me, and you were to 
all intents and purposes.” 

“Did you actually see me go down the steps?” 

“I didn’t actually see you go, but-” 

“Then the rest doesn’t matter. I crept down the 
steps while you were looking the other way. I was 
standing right behind Julien when Rougette paused in 



THE EX-KING TAKES A HAND 63 

her dance to speak to him. It has all come back. I 
can see myself yet. And when he started to kiss her, 

I reached forward and struck. That’s why she boxed 
his ears. It hurt—that stab—just a little. Did you 
know that a stab hurts only just a little bit until an 
instant afterwards? Well, it’s so. The shock para¬ 
lyzes the nerves, or something. Now, do you under¬ 
stand?” 

“I understand that you ought to be in bed.” 

“But you must believe me, Jacques. I-” 

“Stop it! You mustn’t give way to hysteria here 
in the street. Don’t you see that there’s just one thing 
which makes your whole statement ridiculous?” 

“What is that?” 

“You say you stabbed her. Well, what did you stab 
her with? Are you in the habit of carrying a knife 
about with you in the bosom of your dress?” 

“No—I never thought of that. I can’t remember 
any knife.” 

“No wonder, for you didn’t have one.” 

“Then I couldn’t have done it.” 

Her strength gave way, and with her head on the 
painter’s shoulders she began to sob. He spoke to her 
as one might speak to a child. 

“Nothing dreadful has happened. You are worried 


64 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

about Julien, and your imagination has done the rest.” 

“It isn’t that I suspect him, Jacques.” 

“What is it, then?” 

“It’s because I see so clearly how I might have 
done it.” 

Silva drew herself together, began arranging her hair, 
and went on in a firmer voice: 

“I would even have liked to do it—I’m certain of 
that. All the while I was talking it gave me a positive 
pleasure to think of killing her. A voluptuous pleas¬ 
ure. Oh, I don’t know what it means, what has come 
over me. I have murder in my heart. It’s like gloat¬ 
ing over something horrible.” 

This time l’Estrange succeeded in getting the trem¬ 
bling woman inside her door. But she insisted upon 
his leaving her to go up stairs alone, saying that Julien 
might come and that he must find her waiting. 

“He’ll be sure to come,” she repeated, “the minute 
he hears what has happened. That is—if he is 
free.” 

“Why shouldn’t he be free? He intended, I under¬ 
stand, to dress at Rougette’s and to arrive at the dance 
in costume. Even if he was there you will find that 
he wasn’t identified.” 

“You think of everything, Jacques. Then he may 
be here any minute.” 


THE EX-KING TAKES A HAND 65 

Pursued by this thought, Silva bade her friend good¬ 
night and hurried up to her apartment where, without 
calling for the maid whom she believed to be asleep 
in an adjoining room, she slipped on a negligee of soft 
blue silk. Then she touched a match to a gas-log, 
threw herself into an easy chair, and—lighting a cigar¬ 
ette—prepared for a vigil. 

The building was run American fashion, without a 
concierge. It even had an arrangement of levers which 
made it possible to unlock the entrance door from 
every floor. There was a fire-escape at the back. If 
Julien was in flight she would disguise him as her maid. 
She would- 

One impossible scheme after another raced through 
her excited brain, until she arrested herself with an 
exclamation: 

“There! Fm going all over it again. Jacques is 
right. My nerves are unstrung, that is all.” 

She compelled her muscles to relax, and closed her 
eyes so that she seemed to be sleeping. But her expres¬ 
sion gradually clouded, as if she had come upon un¬ 
pleasant dreams. In reality they were merely thoughts, 
memories among which her mind was wandering. 

She recalled her father and mother, plain, whole¬ 
some, farmer folk, who had brought her up in their 
own simple, narrow creed and had looked at her in 



66 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

pain and astonishment but with no inkling of under¬ 
standing when she began to break away into ambitions 
and convictions of her own. She remembered the like¬ 
ness of her handsome grandfather which she had found 
one day in the garret while she was a child—a grand¬ 
father of whom nobody ever spoke. Why? He was 
a most distinguished looking man, to judge from his 
portrait. She “had felt from the instant she looked 
upon that skilfully done likeness, far too fine for 
the other rubbish, that mentally he was her true 
parent and would have understood even her wildest 
thoughts. 

She recalled, too, her brother, so much older than 
she that the only feature which came distinctly back 
was his flaming red hair. Would not he also have 
understood had he not left home years too soon ever 
to know her save as an awkward little girl? His face 
as she tried to draw it now from memory seemed to 
have in it a trace of that grandfathers look. He 
had never come back, but she had once heard of him, 
and—well, well, there was no use thinking about 
that. 

In avoiding this subject, she plunged into a deeper 
one—her own running away from home. At first it 
was to New York, to take a juvenile part on the stage; 
then to Europe, with false hopes of becoming a great 


THE EX-KING TAKES A HAND 


67 


dancer. After that—the very room seemed to go dark 
and to reel as she was drawn down into this past. What 
depths she had sounded nobody knew, nobody ever 
would know. She no longer quite believed them her¬ 
self. And the discontent which sometimes came to 
her in the midst of her success was as strange as the 
chance-discovered skill in her finger-tips which had 
given her independence. There were moments when 
she wanted to tear her tapestries to pieces, to fall upon 
them, trample them. 

But the moods always vanished as quickly as they 
came, leaving a Silva so gentle that even La Gadelle 
seemed an unduly spicy nickname. It was in one 
such interval that Julien had entered her life, acknowl¬ 
edging her potent charm at once. There had been 
no tedious period of anxiety or doubt on either 
side. So now they were to be married and happy. 
They- 

Silva started up, fully awake. Happy? Rougette 
was not the first or only one who had brought fear into 
their paradise. It was becoming plain that Julien was 
merely a boy who had yet to pass through those fires 
which melt away everything but the strong metals of 
good and evil. There was, no doubt, something ma¬ 
ternal in Silva's intense longing for him, something 
almost ferocious in her agony of proprietorship. What 


68 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

if he were to drag her through one martyrdom after 
another while he made his experiments and chased his 
glow-worms and marsh-lights? What if Rougette, not 
the first, were not to be the last? 

“But if he killed her-” 

Silva jumped to her feet and spoke aloud. 

“If he killed her, maybe I can save him. And then 
he will be mine—totally, irrevocably mine. Even if we 
are fugitives, he will still be mine—more mine than 
ever. Great God! To have him mine, in hiding, on 
some far-away island! It would be too good to be 
true.” 

A foot-fall sounded on the carpeted corridor outside, 
and she flew to the door. But it was only Leontine, her 
maid. 

“I slipped out, madame ” she minced. “Thought 
you wouldn’t mind if I went to the ball.” 

“No—though you should have told me. But what 
were you doing by my door?” 

“Why, I saw the light in your window, and was 
coming to tell you—there’s a gentleman who brought 
me home. I made him stay down stairs in the vesti¬ 
bule, but he says he must come up to you at once, no 
matter if it is almost morning.” 

“A gentleman? What gentleman?” 

Silva forced herself to be outwardly calm, though 



THE EX-KING TAKES A HAND 69 

her heart was almost choking her. Could it be Julien 
in disguise? No, or he would not have consented to 
wait. He would have revealed himself to the maid. 
Who then? 

“I don’t know who he is,” said Leontine. “He met 
me at the ball. He wants to see you about something 
that happened tonight.” 

“Tonight?” 

“Yes, but what ails madame?” 

“Nothing. It startled me—to find you listening ” 

“Ah, cherie! I wasn’t eavesdropping. I’d just come 
up. You were alone, weren’t you? Besides, I would 
only listen for you—not to you.” 

She wound her arms about her mistress’s neck with 
the contrite abandon of a spoilt child. Silva smiled. 

“You’d do anything for me, Leontine, I do believe— 
except, perhaps, let me keep a secret.” 

“Madame has many, far too many. It would be 
better if she would talk. When one talks there are 
often ways to help.” 

“Well, perhaps you’ll be called upon to help before 
long. Meanwhile—this gentleman of yours. Let him 
come up, since you’ve already gone so far. Then wait 
within call till he has gone. He may be some trouble¬ 
some fellow only half sober.” 

Leontine pulled a lever, and watched her escort— 


70 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

who wore a clown’s costume—ascend and pass into 
Silva’s boudoir. When the door closed after him, how¬ 
ever, her curiosity became more than she could endure. 
True, she had been warned against listening, but what 
are warnings if not accompanied by any particular risk 
in ignoring them? 

“Don’t know me, eh?” she heard the stranger saying 
as she put her ear to one of the panels. “You saw 
me once, though, right here with a lot of artists and 
high-fliers.” 

“I’ve entertained so many that your name-” 

“Let it go, little one. If my name don’t mean any¬ 
thing to you, try calling me the ex-king of the apaches. 
Lots still do, though these days I’m not generally brag¬ 
ging about it.” 

Silva laughed outright. 

“There are so many ex-kings. If you’re trying to 
frighten me, remember—La Gadelle isn’t an ex ” 

Leontine retreated, for she thought the door was 
going to be opened, and by the time she discovered her 
mistake and was back at her listening-post, the tone 
of the conversation had changed. 

“Yes, I saw it at your party,” the ex-king was say¬ 
ing; “a straight little toad-sticker with a jeweled 
handle. Came near stealing it. Now I just ask you 
where it is.” 



THE EX-KING TAKES A HAND 


7i 


“Gone!” 

Silva’s exclamation came from the farther side of 
the room and after a long silence that had been broken 
only by short, indistinguishable phrases. 

“Gone! I saw it yesterday. It must—ah! Jacques 
was wrong. I did go, armed after all.” 

She was now moving rapidly about, and Leontine, 
in continual fear that some sudden impulse to put 
the visitor out would lead her mistress to come to the 
door, was forced to dodge back and forth, into 
hiding and out, as the voice approached or retreated. 
But she still managed to catch some of the talk, 
though in broken and scarcely intelligible frag¬ 
ments. 

“So, you are here for blackmail, n’est-ce pas?” 

“Par exemple! But one must live. I’m none of 
your professional blood-suckers, though.” 

Then another bit: 

“Oh, no! You can’t tame me.” 

“Damn it, Silva-” 

“If you please, we won’t call one another Silva and 
—whatever it is one calls you when one doesn’t say 
chien” 

Later again the voices sounded more amicable. The 
man’s, in fact, was not only respectful but admiring: 

“Mon dieu! Since you take it this way, I may be 
able to be useful to you.” 


72 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

To which the other replied: 

“My dear Haquenee, don’t bank on this game. I 
tell you, I don’t care a fig for the assizes.” 

They were approaching the door for certain this 
time, and Leontine slipped behind a pillar at a turn of 
the hall. From here she saw once more the man who 
had walked home with her. But now his face was 
exposed—a wonderfully thin and handsome face, she 
thought, though he looked more subdued than she 
could have imagined him. What a way her mistress 
had with men. And yet—why, she was actually giving 
him money. It was a purchased victory, then. Leon- 
tine’s blood boiled. The impudent scoundrel! She 
would show him. 

Silva had disappeared into her room, and the clown 
was coming down the passage. With an audacity all 
her own, the maid stepped out. 

“Thought you were going without wishing me good 
night, did you?” she demanded, her lips in a pout but 
a look of admiration creeping in spite of herself into 
her eyes. 

“Who the devil are you?” La Haquenee spoke as one 
coming out of a dream. The look in the maid’s eyes 
became mocking and defiant. 

“You’ll find out who I am if you try to put over 
anything in this house.” 

“Put anything over?” 


THE EX-KING TAKES A HAND 73 

“Without asking my help, at least. Did you think 
I wasn’t anywhere about?” 

“So, that’s the way it is? You little chattel Come 
here.” 

As she did not move, La Haquenee advanced towards 
her, caught her suddenly around the waist, and with 
one hand fastening itself in the masses of her hair 
forced her head slowly back over her shoulders. 

She struggled with all the frantic and slippery deter¬ 
mination of an eel, but was unable to loosen the grip 
which held her. She slapped the apache with all her 
strength full in the face. He only laughed, continuing 
to bend her head and shoulders back until her face 
grew white with pain. 

“Tell me when you’ve had enough,” he suggested 
lightly. 

“Assez! Laissez moi!” she panted. 

La Haquenee released her waist and brought the flat 
of his hand violently down upon her upturned fea¬ 
tures. She winced, but did not move, though her eyes 
bored into his with the fury of a trapped wild creature. 
He lifted his hand again, and slowly the girl’s eyes 
began to waver. The light of anger died out, turning 
to something submissive, suppliant. 

“We understand each other, heinV’ 

“Mais out. Don’t strike me again.” 


74 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


“Kiss me, then.” 

Leontine hesitated for just a second longer, then 
slipped her arms around La Haquenee’s shoulders and 
pressed her lips to his. 


CHAPTER V 

WHAT THE POLICE NEVER SEE 

A police investigation is often compared with a 
drag-net, encircling all possible suspects and bringing 
them before the judge like so many helpless fish to be 
weighed, measured, returned to their dement or dis¬ 
sected at ease. In reality it is much more like a game 
of blind man’s buff played in the dark where the actors 
pass and repass each other, sometimes unseen and 
unseeing, sometimes filled with vague suspicion, seldom 
with mutual recognition. 

What would happen could some search-light be 
invented which would betray all the secrets hidden 
behind walls, retained by closed lips, or lurking as 
unexpressed thoughts in the depths of human minds? 
Unending disaster, most likely. Certainly it would be 
a hardy realist who would wish for such a light, and 
to use it without harm would require more wisdom than 
falls to the lot of most investigators. 

75 


76 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

However innocent your life has been, would you 
dare to publish it unreservedly to the world? No, our 
institutions are based upon the prevalence of ignorance, 
and would become terrible if sharpened by omniscience. 
It is better that we should continue to stumble on, more 
or less blindfolded, our perceptions limited to match 
our sympathies and understanding. 

Thanks to the limitations in question, Silva Jonquille 
was permitted to pass the night away unmolested, half 
sleeping, half waking, before her fire. La Haquenee 
had told her that the murder had been committed with 
her own knife. His description of the blade left no 
room for doubt. It was a jeweled-handled paper- 
cutter, which she had always kept in a secret drawer 
of her desk. And it was gone. 

She had met the discovery at first with exultation, 
and had overwhelmed the apache with her proud 
avowal of guilt. Did it not confirm the story of her 
dream which she had already confided to l’Estrange? 
But now the exultant mood was gone, and she felt but 
a vague, numb horror of herself. 

For one thing, that fugitive life with a helpless and 
dependent Julian seemed no longer possible. It would 
have been so sweet to run away, avoiding the danger 
of railroad stations and sea-ports by means of false 
passports, assumed names and the thousand and one 


WHAT THE POLICE NEVER SEE 


77 


simple stratagems used every day to trick the sup¬ 
posedly omnipotent Justice of the State. She would 
have known so well how to arrange it. Familiarity with 
adventurers of all sorts had taught her at least that. 
But with Julien in no danger, it would not be fair to 
drag him down to her level. She must release him, let 
him go his own way, alone and free. 

And yet with the evidence of it before her in the 
shape of that empty secret drawer, she could no longer 
believe in her own guilt. 

“Why? Why? Why?” she moaned. “I seemed to 
see it clearly a while ago. But now—there is some¬ 
thing back of it all which I do not understand. What 
is it? I must find out or I shall go mad.” 

Day dawned without bringing any inner enlighten¬ 
ment, and she consented to take a petit dejeuner of 
coffee and rolls, not because she was hungry but to 
avoid what Leontine assured her would be a certain 
break-down if she did not eat. At about nine o’clock 
the doorbell rang. 

“There he is!” she cried, coming out of the trance¬ 
like reverie into which she had fallen. “His staying 
away was what worried me. Now I shall be all right 
again, and know what to do.” 

But it was l’Estrange, not Ferrard, whom Leontine 
admitted. 


78 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“I have news for you,” began the painter, stooping 
to kiss her hand—a mere act of courtesy in France, 
but one to which he managed to give an old-fashioned 
grace and seriousness. 

“Good news?” 

“At least it isn’t bad. Julien came to me last night 
soon after I got home. He’s there now, entirely free 
and unmolested, so there’s nothing to be immediately 
anxious about.” 

“He came to you? Why not to me?” 

“I was nearer. We should have foreseen, too, that 
he would not want to bring you into the matter. If 
he had been followed-” 

“How could he have been followed, since he wasn’t 
at the ball?” 

L’Estrange lighted a cigarette and began pacing 
slowly up and down the room. 

“Silva, I’m going to be frank with you. He was 
at the ball—I got that out of him at last.” 

“You mean that he came to you at first with a 
made-up story?” 

“Naturally—we can’t blame him for that. I was 
a comparative stranger, and he hesitated to take me 
into his confidence.” 

“Well, what did he say?” 

“He said at first that he fell asleep at Rougette’s 



WHAT THE POLICE NEVER SEE 79 

and didn’t wake up until the middle of the night, 
when he found himself alone and decided to come to 
me and see what had happened.” 

“How do you know, Jacques, that it wasn’t true?” 

“I don’t know how I knew. We painters learn some 
things which we don’t understand very well ourselves. 
But I could see by his face that he was keeping some¬ 
thing back, and I told him so.” 

"“What did he say then?” 

“He gave me the real story—after a little coaxing.” 

L’Estrange paused in his walk and seated himself 
upon a low stool near Silva’s feet. 

“Really, it isn’t so bad,” he went on. “It seems 
that he did go to Rougette’s, just as I prophesied, and 
changed his clothes there. After that he showed him¬ 
self nowhere without his disguise. He didn’t even 
give his name at the ticket-office or speak to anybody 
inside. So that’s one point gained.” 

Silva took a fresh cigarette, leaned forward and held 
the tip of it in the flame until the heat nearly scorched 
her fingers, then threw herself back in her chair. But 
as she offered no remark, the other went on: 

“Then came the dance. Rougette, he says, suddenly 
looked up into his face and asked him to kiss her. He 
was surprised, for he knew you were there and it had 
never come into his head that she wanted to make 


So THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

trouble. But he started to take the dare—it seemed 
the best way out of it. Before he could reach her lips, 
however, she boxed his ears—so hard that he half 
thought she was in earnest—and then drew him to her. 
I gather that she was trying to make it look as if he 
were fighting for the kiss against her resistance.” 

Silva nodded, but seemed hardly to be listening. 

“The next thing he remembers,” l’Estrange contin¬ 
ued, “was her screaming and shoving him violently 
away. There was the sound of something tinkling to 
the floor. He didn’t stop to see what it was, but says 
he is certain it was a knife. 

“It was dark by now, and he gained an exit without 
being seen—certainly without being recognized— 
though his dress caught on something and he had to 
abandon part of it. Still, his face wasn’t exposed until 
after he was safe in the street.” 

“That’s enough, Jacques. I understand.” 

“But it isn’t all. Here are the morning papers. 
They contain a full account of the crime, but no men¬ 
tion of either of you.” 

He took a number of papers from his pocket as he 
spoke and spread them out for inspection. Silva 
scarcely glanced at the headlines. 

“How does Julien think it was done?” she asked, 
listlessly. 


WHAT THE POLICE NEVER SEE 81 

“We discussed that/’ answered l’Estrange, regarding 
her curiously. “He thinks that the knife may have 
been shot from an air-gun by somebody hidden over¬ 
head among the decorations of the rafters.” 

“But that’s preposterous. He would have heard it 
fly past him—besides, in that case it would have struck 
him, not her.” 

“It does seem so. But then it’s only a theory. No 
doubt we’ll be able to find a better one later on.” 

“We’ve a better one already. Don’t you remember 
what I told you last night?” 

“Your foolish dream? Come, Silva. That was all 
right during the first excitement, but you mustn’t 
expect me to listen to such nonsense now, in broad 
daylight.” 

“Wait till you’ve heard everything. I had a visit 
soon after you left—a very strange one.” 

She went on to describe the call of La Haquenee 
and how he had come to extract money from her on 
the strength of the weapon which he had recognized in 
the judge’s hands. 

“It was my paper-cutter,” she finished. “You know 

_my misMcorde. La Haquenee saw it at one of my 

free-for-all receptions, though how he happened to be 
present I don’t know. Makes a business of pushing 
his way into places, I suppose. I was foolish enough 


82 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

to show it on account of its beautiful handle. But he 
seems to have noticed the blade, too, though I’m sure 
I called no attention to that.” 

L’Estrange looked grave. 

“An apache!” he said at last. “And you didn’t 
show him the door?” 

“No. How could I? He knew the truth.” 

“Then what did you do?” 

“Don’t be so sorry for me, Jacques. He wasn’t 
such a bad sort. I met him on his own ground and 
won his admiration completely. Can you guess how?” 

“That’s not so remarkable. But how?” 

“By boasting instead of denying. An apache adores 
the sort of a woman who isn’t afraid to kill either an 
unfaithful lover or a rival. He understands that sort 
of thing. So I played up to him, and shouldn’t wonder 
if I was in effect the Queen of the Apaches of Paris 
myself, this very minute.” 

“You don’t mean that you pretended-” 

“I told him much what I’d already told you, about 
my dream—only I didn’t put it as a dream. Don’t you 
see that this clenches it?” 

“It clenches its impossibility, Silva. You must face 
the facts. Don’t you see? In order to have taken 
that knife—in the sort of trance which you’ve de¬ 
scribed—you must have been dreaming from the mo- 



WHAT THE POLICE NEVER SEE 83 

ment you left here and have had the misericorde with 
you all the time you were at my dinner, though you 
didn’t even know that Rougette was to be at the dance. 
Do you pretend to remember that?” 

“No, not yet. But maybe it will come—though you 
do make it hard.” 

“It will never come. And I want you to think of 
Julien. La Haquenee’s story is ridiculous against 
yourself, but you can’t help seeing how it increases 
Julien’s difficulties.” 

“Julien’s-” 

“Certainly. Here’s a peculiar knife, which you 
could neither have taken or used. But he could easily 
have done both. I presume he knew where you kept 
the thing?” 

“Yes, but he never—don’t tempt me, Jacques.” 

“What?” 

“Don’t you see that I want to believe him guilty, 
that I’ve been fighting with myself to relieve my con¬ 
science? For it is wicked—wicked to wish to have 
another in your power, even if you only mean to love 
him and take care of him.” 

The painter studied his vis-a-vis for a long, silent 
moment, as if she had been sitting before him for her 
portrait and he meant to put on his canvas not so much 


84 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

her body as her soul. Gradually, however, his expres¬ 
sion softened. 

“I see. You do believe him guilty. And you for¬ 
give him. A woman’s heart is a wonderful thing— 
when she is in love. A man could never do that.” 

“But you are still his friend. Do you mean that 
you think I’m wrong?” 

“Yes, though I’ll admit that appearances are very 
much against him. In fact, his case is so bad on the 
face of it that we’ll have to treat it as altogether so. 
That will give you your chance to mother—to take 
care of him.” 

“What are we to do?” 

“I’ve been thinking of that. Certainly we mustn’t 
leave him to wander about the city at large. A glass 
too much, a chat with some boon companion—a word 
might ruin him.” 

“We’ll run away together, then.” 

“Out of the question. You fainted before Judge 
Tardieu.” 

Silva turned pale. 

“Then, if they’ve already connected me with the 
case-” 

“But they haven’t or we’d already have seen some 
signs of it. A single incident like that passes. They 
happen every day. But if either you or your lover 



WHAT THE POLICE NEVER SEE 85 

were to leave town the police would begin to link one 
thing with another. You know what stupid but meth¬ 
odical and painstaking gentlemen they are. So Julien 
must keep quiet until the truth itself comes out. You 
must watch over him. But you can’t do it here. I’ll 
tell you what—supposing you both come to live at 
my place?” 

“But that would-” 

“No, it wouldn’t inconvenience me a bit. My ar¬ 
rangements are all made to go to Rome—for my annual 
visit at the Medici school. I’ll get the duchess de 
Fayves to come and play chaperone for you, and Julien 
can lay low and pretend to be varnishing my pictures.” 

La Gadelle reached out a hand until it rested upon 
her visitor’s coat sleeves. 

“Jacques,” she said gently, “I didn’t know that you 
were in love with me.” 

“I didn’t know it yet,” the painter laughed. 

“But you are. Nobody ever does such things for 
any other reason.” 

“Have it your own way, then. I suppose I would 
go pretty far rather than see harm come to a beauti¬ 
ful thing.” 

“Oh, it’s that?” 

“Let’s call it that. Besides, I’m taking no risk. It 
was late when Ferrard came. Nobody knows he’s 



86 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


there. I was going to shut up the house, and the 
servants have all been dismissed—except Peters, my 
English butler. You don’t know him, as he’s just back 
from visiting his relatives, but he can be trusted with 
anything where I am concerned. If worst comes to 
worst, I can say that I let the place to you in complete 
ignorance.” 

“It’s a bargain, then,” cried Silva, rousing herself 
to a sudden resolve. “Only there will be difficulties.” 

“Yes; there’s the apache.” 

“Bah!” I can manage him. But the duchess of 
Fayves will never-” 

“She doesn’t know-” 

“She knows that I am La Gadelle, and there are 
limits even to your influence, my friend.” 

“In that case, you must manage. I leave tonight. 
Better get there early tomorrow. And don’t go accus¬ 
ing yourself to Ferrard.” 

Silva stood for a long time looking into the blaze 
after l’Estrange had gone. It was true—she must not 
accuse herself to Ferrard. There was no knowing 
how he would take it. Better say nothing, either, 
about the poignard, now that there was no evidence 
that she had ever possessed it. 

“We are safe. I’ll have to be satisfied with that,” 




WHAT THE POLICE NEVER SEE 87 

she murmured, moving over to her desk and beginning 
to rummage among its litter of papers. 

La Haquenee had said, she remembered suddenly, 
that the police had only the blade. Where, then, was 
the hilt? She had hunted for the complete poignard 
before, not for anything as small as a detached handle. 
So her hands fluttered about, trying to make sure that 
nothing had been overlooked. But moment by mo¬ 
ment her activity became less and less intelligent, and 
finally ceased altogether. Overcome by her long vigil 
and the emotions she had gone through, Silva sank 
down before the desk, spread out her arms upon it for 
a pillow, and fell asleep. 

When she woke, Leontine was standing beside her. 

“What are you doing here?” cried the mistress, 
starting up. “It seems to me that you are always spy¬ 
ing upon me. You-” 

“But, madame! I did not mean to startle you. Can 
you not tell me what is the trouble? The papers are 
full of a murder at the ball last night, and—but you 
are too nervous-” 

“I am not nervous, only—why did you wake me up 
so suddenly?” 

“I tried not to. But an old lady wishes to see you 
—not exactly a lady either, and not so very old. But 
oh, very, very drole ” 

“A lady?” Silva rubbed her eyes, trying to collect 




88 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

her ideas. “What sort of a lady? Not the duch¬ 
ess-?” 

“Oh, no. It’s a Mrs. Granger. She says she used 
to know you at home, and that you will remember her.” 

“I know of no Mrs. Granger. I seem to have heard 
the name, though. Was it last night? I can’t think. 
It may have been years ago. Wait! There is some¬ 
thing I was looking for.” 

She made a thorough search this time, not only of 
the desk but of the room—to discover nothing. 

“I had hoped—or maybe feared is the better word. 
Anyway it isn’t here. So it’s obvious at least that I 
didn’t take it and bring part of it back.” 

Leontine started, half frightened. 

“Is madame ill? Shall I tell the woman-” 

“No, no. Don’t mind me. I was only talking to 
myself—some nonsense. Let the lady in. I want 
to find out when it was that I heard her name.” 

Leontine withdrew, and a moment later Silva was 
staring into the face of the woman whom she had 
found with Judge Tardieu the night before. Further 
than that her recollection did not go. Nevertheless 
Mrs. Granger proceeded to gather her within her stout, 
motherly arms and to babble irrepressibly of old times 
until gradually the veil of forgetfulness lifted. 

Salem; neighbors of her girlhood days; a thousand 




WHAT THE POLICE NEVER SEE 89 

things that had long since passed out of her life—yes, 
Silva remembered them, though vaguely enough. What 
did they matter? What did one mean by bringing 
them up at this late day? She could see no reason 
why the accident of once having lived in the same 
town should be made the basis of a renewed acquaint¬ 
ance in Paris. A chilly reception, however, was evi¬ 
dently beyond this caller’s powers of comprehension. 

“I found out where you lived from our hotel clerk,” 
she chattered, taking a seat without waiting to be asked 
and untying the strings that held her quaint, old-fash¬ 
ioned bonnet—a bit of headgear which she had evi¬ 
dently clung to through many vicissitudes of fashion 
and fortune. “ ‘Silva Jonquille?’ says he. ‘I don’t 
need any book for her, m’am.’ Eben and I were never 
so surprised in our lives.” 

“Who told you what name I was living under?” 
Silva demanded, suddenly realizing that this visit was 
even more incomprehensible than she had at first im¬ 
agined. “I’ve never written home since my father 
and mother died. I didn’t suppose that anyone else 
had my alias.” 

“Your parents certainly never mentioned it,” ad¬ 
mitted the other, assuming the expression proper to a 
conversation involving persons. “Like the rest of us, 
they were a lot cut up by your runnin’ away. That 


9 o THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

only shows how little we know of what’s goin to 

happen.” 

“But you haven’t said where you got my name.” 

“Bless you, child, don’t you remember last night? 
When you fainted everybody seemed to know you, and 
they insisted that your name was Jonquille. I thought 
at first that you must be married.” 

“But you didn’t tell them that my real name was 
Marx?” 

“To be sure I did—and a lot of good it did me. 
They treated me like a foolish old woman, as if I’d 
forgotten all I ever knew just because I happened to 
be in Paris.” 

Silva tightened her hands in her lap. 

“Are you certain they thought you as foolish as they 
pretended?” 

“Huh! I should say so. I’m not likely to forget 
it. But you needn’t look so put out. I’ll keep my 
mouth shut after this if you want me to—though I 
don’t see why I shouldn’t write home and tell ’em how 
you’re gettin’ on. Salem folks will be mighty proud 
of you. You see, none of us could believe that a young 
girl could run off to Europe without goin’ more or less 
wrong. It was only human nature, and maybe the 
way we was brought up.” 

“I don’t suppose it does really matter,” said Silva, 


WHAT THE POLICE NEVER SEE 


9i 


relaxing. “My real name can mean nothing to the 
police, and it’s nothing unusual for a woman in my 
position to live under a pseudonym, though I could 
have wished-” 

“Of course it’s nothing unusual. Naturally you 
couldn’t know at first whether you were going to be 
a credit to us or not. And maybe if you hadn’t been I 
wouldn’t be so glad to see you. I suppose you think 
we’re an un-Christian lot, but somehow it’s a good deal 
easier to want to know an actress when she’s famous 
than when she isn’t. I hope I wouldn’t have turned 
my back even if I’d found you in straits—but I’m not 
so sure. We’re all pretty miserable sinners when you 
come right down to it.” 

“But I’m not an actress,” cried Silva, lifting her 
head in surprise. 

“Not an actress? Then what are you? How else 
can a woman get so everybody knows her, even hotel 
clerks and judges?” 

Silva winced. She would never be able to explain 
to this benevolent old busybody that in Paris a woman 
may become known for her toilettes, her entertain¬ 
ments, the protests of the mothers of eligible sons, or 
even from the general curiosity she awakened as to 
the source of her funds. And yet she was filled with 
an unaccountable impulse to justify herself. It was in 



92 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

obedience to this feeling that she got up and abruptly 
conducted her caller to the hidden work-room whose 
existence was known only to her maid and those imme¬ 
diately concerned with its operations. 

Mrs. Granger, as the method of reproducing old 
tapestries was explained to her, was a study. 

“Well, you must have taken me for a regular old 
ninny!” she exclaimed finally, throwing herself into 
an arm-chair. “Here I’ve been plumin’ myself all the 
morning, thinkin’ I was liberal-minded—disguisin' 
from myself, too, the plain fact that I was tickled to be 
acquainted with somebody whose picture I thought 
must be in the papers almost every week. And here 
you’ve been doin’ honest fancy-work, just like Mrs. 
McMonagle back home. Imagine anybody bein’ lib¬ 
eral-minded and patronizin’ to her! 

“And yet you are famous,” she continued, recover¬ 
ing something of her first look. “You must be, livin’ 
in a place like this and known to all those people. Paris 
does beat all. To think that one can get so far up just 
by makin’ tidies and rugs! ” 

“Gobleins are no such trifling matters,” Silva man¬ 
aged to bring out. 

“Bless me! Don’t I know that? It’s what you call 
art. Millie is crazy about such things. I hear all the 
talk, though most of it goes in one ear and out the 


WHAT THE POLICE NEVER SEE 


93 

other. I must bring her here tomorrow to see them.” 

a Not tomorrow, Mrs. Granger. I’m going to move 
today, and tomorrow I won’t be settled.” 

“Mercy!” 

The good lady got hurriedly to her feet. 

“If you’re gettin’ ready to move you won’t want me 
here, gabbling your time away. But where are you 
goin’ to move to? Something finer still, I suppose. 
This looks good enough to me, but of course the new 
places-” 

“It’s to a place on the boulevard St. Germain,” put 
in Silva with a smile, “a very old, old place, I assure 
you.” 

“Then that’s sensible. It’s so expensive even at our 
hotel that I keep tellin’ Eben we can’t afford another 
day of it. He and Millie seem to have lost all sense 
of the value of money since we’ve managed to put a 
little by. Still they ain’t quite fools, and you needn’t 
be ashamed to have us come and see you no matter 
where you live.” 

It was too much, this conception of l’Estrange’s 
eighteenth century mansion, and Silva, yielding to 
hearty and refreshing laughter, approached her visitor 
and kissed her on the cheek. 

“My dear Mrs. Granger! I’d love to have you come 
—whether I’m settled or not. When I said old, I 



94 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

meant antique. It’s one of the loveliest residences in 
Paris, and furnished—oh, very simply, but by a great 
artist. He’s leaving town and letting me have it for 
the season. That is, if I can get the right person to 
come and stay with me.” 

Before Mrs. Granger could respond with anything 
but an amazed dropping of the jaw, the telephone rang. 
As Silva had foreseen, the duchess of Fayves had found 
it impossible to act as chaperone. L’Estrange, who 
was at the other end of the wire, tried to soften the 
fact as much as possible, and repeated a long string of 
perfectly good excuses which her ladyship had given. 
But it was apparent that while genius and blood might 
claim almost any indulgence for itself, it could not 
pass on its privileges to one of the more strictly ac¬ 
countable sex. 

“Something has happened,” Mrs. Granger declared 
as Silva returned. “I see it in your face.” 

“It’s only about my new menage. The lady I was 
expecting to stay with me can’t come, and—really, I 
don’t know what to do.” 

“You don’t—Silva, how big is this new house of 
yours?” 

“Enormous. I was only going to live in a few 
rooms in one corner. But without anybody of the 
kind I want-” 



WHAT THE POLICE NEVER SEE 95 

“Say!” interrupted the other. “You don’t look as 
if your prosperity had made you stuck up—and I hate 
it at the hotel. It isn’t quite the place for pa, or 
Millie either, and she wants to stay here a while and 
study. If you could only let us all come and help you 
pay your rent-” 

“You mean—you would?” 

“Yes, and be glad of the chance. It isn’t every day 
you come upon somebody you used to know, when 
you’re travelin’ in a foreign land.” 

La Gadelle was touched. Here were the old, fa¬ 
miliar sentiments of a side of the world she had almost 
forgotten, and the chief difficulties of the new estab¬ 
lishment seemed already as good as solved. As to the 
complications which the good Mrs. Granger was unwit¬ 
tingly bringing into the situation, they were as yet 
safely hidden behind the curtain of the future. And 
how strangely impenetrable that curtain sometimes is. 



CHAPTER VI 


A WELL-RECOMMENDED SERVANT 

That same morning, one of the small exhibition- 
galleries which in Paris help to carry on the never- 
ending business of Art was invaded before the opening 
hour by a man with the slight nervous build of a 
grasshopper. So active were all his movements and 
gayly cynical was the twinkle in his eye that he 
might have passed for young had it not been for the 
severe cut of his somber black suit and his head of 
venerable gray hair. 

Evidently he was not altogether a stranger, for the 
doors until now so forbiddingly locked swung open 
before him with a deferential promptness not entirely 
to be accounted for by the liberality of the pourboire 
which he slipped into the hand of the waiting at¬ 
tendant. 

Once inside the main salle, the early arrival seated 
himself comfortably upon a velvet lounge, adjusted a 
gold-rimmed pince-nez and became immediately en¬ 
grossed in the picture before him. 

96 


A WELL-RECOMMENDED SERVANT 


97 


There was something about this picture which would 
have made known to the poorest critic in the world 
that it was considered the gem of the collection. It 
was hung with nothing above or below it and with 
plenty of vacant wall-space on either side; and the 
sun-light, which, after passing through the salle’s glass 
roof, sifted from a false ceiling of white muslin, fell 
upon the canvas at precisely the proper angle. More¬ 
over there was a special railing to keep meddlesome 
hands at a distance, and the lounge had been placed at 
a carefully calculated spot. Given this bright morning 
and this empty room, it would be difficult to imagine 
a painting displayed to better advantage. 

“Judge Tardieu, is it not?” sounded an unexpected 
voice, destroying these ideal conditions as suddenly 
and completely as if a bomb had been dropped from 
the sky. 

Tardieu—for he it was—turned impatiently and dis¬ 
covered that a woman in a fashionable but rather 
mannish tailor-made dress had quietly taken a place 
beside him. She was perhaps thirty—maybe a little 
more, maybe a little less, it was difficult to say—neither 
very plump nor very thin, obviously intelligent, and 
with a suggestion of softness and beauty, especially in 
her eyes, that was obscured but not quite extinguished 


98 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

by the severity of her attire and her business-like 

expression. 

“At your service, mademoiselle,” returned the judge, 
having assured himself that here was not the sort of a 
woman who ordinarily seeks a gentleman’s acquaint¬ 
ance unasked. “Are you an art-student? I see you 
know the only proper way to visit a picture show. 
Later, when the crowds come-” 

“Oh, no, I’m not a student,” interrupted the 
intruder, still perfectly matter of fact. “I followed 
you.” 

“Followed?” 

“Yes, you were pointed out to me as you left your 
lodgings where I was waiting in the street in hopes of 
meeting you. Here are some papers which will per¬ 
haps explain.” 

She handed him a neat bundle of documents—her 
passport, permis de sejour, and a paper even more 
explicit and bearing like the others her photograph and 
attested signature. Tardieu studied the likenesses 
carefully, scrutinized the unflinching original beside 
him until certain that there could be no possible decep¬ 
tion or mistake, then cordially rose and extended his 
hand with the slightly elaborate air of one conscious of 
obeying a foreign custom. 

“A representative of the Ferris McClue Agency is 



A WELL-RECOMMENDED SERVANT 


99 


always welcome,” he said, resuming his seat. “Miss 
Clara Hope doubly so. I’ve heard of you, and trust 
you’ve brought some news of The Ferret himself.” 

“Only what you probably know—that he is in Eu¬ 
rope somewhere, looking for his pet bugaboo, Marie, 
Le Caillou, or whatever you at present call him.” 

“I have no name for the bugaboo,” smiled the judge. 
“But I wish he was laid by the heels or that somebody 
would prove that no such person ever existed. Until 
something of the sort happens I suppose we’ve seen 
practically the last of Mac. Don’t you really know 
where he is?” 

“No.” 

“That’s odd—or rather it isn’t.” 

“Not odd?” 

“That I shouldn’t possess your confidence.” 

“That isn’t the explanation, Judge Tardieu, I assure 
you.” 

“Well, well! In any case, the last time I saw him— 
he calls himself Lepadou over here, you know—the 
last time I saw him it was the same old bee in his 
bonnet. He believes in the super-criminal legend. One 
might almost say that he started it.” 

“That’s why I’m here, m’sieu le juge” 

“To catch Le Caillou yourself?” 

“Or prove his non-existence. Why not?” 


100 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“No reason at all, except that the rest of us have 
given it up.” 

“Mr. McClue hasn’t.” 

“My dear young lady, if your story is true we don’t 
really know that McClue is still alive.” 

Tardieu failed to observe a slight shiver that passed 
through the woman beside him, and continued in an 
impersonal tone: 

“At least / don’t. And I don’t know a thing about 
Caillou. There hasn’t been a move so much as attrib¬ 
uted to him since that Boncoeur affair which your 
employer helped us unravel.” 

“Unravel, but not to wind up, Judge. The super¬ 
criminal escaped.” 

“Exactly, if he was a super-criminal—just when we 
were ready to put the handcuffs on him. Since then it 
has become unfashionable to lay every mysterious 
crime at his door. We French demand a frequent 
change of mode. But I’d like to hear your opinion.” 

“About my employer? I think he is alive, though 
it has been a long time since he has answered any let¬ 
ters or given any sign of existence whatever.” 

“Then, unless you have your reasons—but I was 
thinking about the super-criminal.” 

“I believe in him, too,” said Clara. “Where there 
so much smoke there must be a fire.” 


A WELL-RECOMMENDED SERVANT 


IOI 


“I’d almost like to think so, Miss Hope, and some¬ 
times I talk just as you do. But then I am old and 
romantic, while you are young-” 

“And romantic?” 

“Heaven save us! Aren’t you? You’re a woman.” 

“Even women have to be practical these days.” 

“Then no wonder the world isn’t what it used to be. 
As to the smoke, I suppose you’re referring to that 
woman drowned at a little fishing village near Mar¬ 
seilles last summer, and the other one at Venice-” 

“No, was referring—do you suppose you could get 
me employed by the police as a special operator?” 

“On these so-called drowning cases?” 

“Not at all. Something here in Paris.” 

“Undoubtedly I could, if you’d accept-” 

“I’d accept employment on the case of the artists’ 
model who was murdered at the ball last night.” 

Tardieu stared. 

“You’re up to date. But of course—the news¬ 
papers.” 

“I haven’t read them.” 

“Then why that case in particular? How do you 
come to know of it?” 

“In the first place, I was there,” Clara responded. 
“And in the second, it seems to me that too many of 
your mysteries are aquatic.” 



102 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“Permit me to say that you are a very observing 
young lady.” 

The judge shot out his remark under his breath 
but with the vehemence of a string of bullets. Then 
he leaned back against the upholstery of the lounge, 
half closed his eyes, and seemed to give himself up to 
the lazy luxury of his pose. When he spoke again it 
was with the air of changing the subject. 

“What do you think of this picture? It’s been sold 
to one of your millionaires and is only on exhibition 
here before being shipped to New York. The price I 
can guarantee as superb. Do you like the quality?” 

“I know nothing of art,” answered Clara Hope with¬ 
out betraying the slightest surprise at the question. 
“That is, not what you Europeans call knowing. But 
I can see that this is the picture that Rougette Picot 
and her partner caricatured at the ball.” 

“Good! Anything else?” 

“Yes; they missed the point of it. The woman isn’t 
being dragged down by The Squid at all, but by some¬ 
thing within her heart. She could easily reach up her 
arms—they are free—to that projecting bit of the 
fountain above her head, and she would be saved. 
But she wants to be dragged down. I should say she 
was afraid of something worse, something which she 
might do if she lived.” 

“Go on.” 


A WELL-RECOMMENDED SERVANT 103 

“There is nothing more, except that the painter must 
have wonderful powers of observation and sympathy. 
It would be a good thing for a detective to know what 
that man knows. But he would never tell.” 

“You are phenomenal, Miss Hope, and infinitely 
right. You’ve hit, too, upon the most remarkable thing 
in l’Estrange’s works—all of them. They are painted 
from knowledge, and I may add—pity. But he does 
tell what he knows. The trouble is we haven’t the 
brains to translate the information from his medium 
of thought to our own—which is probably quite as well 
for ourselves and a good deal better for a lot of other 
people. If we were all to become seers—heavens! 
There wouldn’t be jails enough in Paris to hold the 
people we’d be foolish enough to arrest.” 

“You’ll get me the engagement, then?” asked Clara, 
harking back to the original subject. “It would be an 
enormous help if I had the machinery of the Police 
Force at my disposal.” 

“I’ll do better than that,” declared the judge, rousing 
himself. “I’ll trick the chief into engaging you, too. 
Just at present he and I are busy trying to prove each 
other wrong on every possible occasion. All you need 
to do is to go to him, present your credentials, and 
tell him I would have nothing to say to you. Balai 
will bite like a trout.” 


104 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

Instead of proceeding at once to put this theory to 
the test, Clara went out, ordered a tardy breakfast at 
the first restaurant she came to, and buried herself in 
the newspapers. 

The bal des Tapettes had seized her imagination 
from the first, and from the moment when she saw 
that there was actually a squid among the masquer¬ 
aders she had watched carefully every move of the 
hidden drama which she sensed to be passing before 
her eyes. Thus, in spite of the crowd, neither the 
attack upon the model nor the quick removal of her 
body from the scene had altogether escaped her. She 
had hovered about the entrance to the impromptu tri¬ 
bunal, eagerly noting faces and remembering the names 
let fall by those who came and went. She had even 
been one of the witnesses summoned to give testimony, 
and before leaving the building she knew the name of 
the beautiful woman whom a famous painter had taken 
away in his arms. 

Not only this, but she had kept her eye on a clown 
who had entered the judge’s presence masked and come 
out with his face uncovered—though it remained so 
for only an instant. And when, considerably later, he 
started away with one of the dancers tucked master¬ 
fully under his arm, she followed him and noted the 
number of the apartment house on the boulevard Ras- 


A WELL-RECOMMENDED SERVANT 105 


pail wherein he and his companion disappeared. Had 
La Haquenee been less eager to resume his false face, 
it is possible that Clara would have let him go with a 
passing glance. But it is of such little things as this 
that the plots of real life are composed. 

In calling on Judge Tardieu her chief object had 
been to ascertain if the authorities had any informa¬ 
tion which was being withheld from the public. This 
object was now attained, and having finished with the 
newspapers she found herself little further advanced 
than she had been the night before. A lot of details 
interesting in themselves but lacking those essential 
facts which might have linked them together—what 
did they amount to? The police reports to the press 
showed that the crime was being treated superficially, 
as something picturesque rather than important. Was 
it really worth while to go to the chief and hear these 
same details all over again? 

While debating the question and casting about for 
some possibly better use of her time, Clara called for 
the Botin —that incomparable encyclopedia of general 
information which serves as directory in Paris—and 
looked up the address of Silva Jonquille. For the 
omission of this name, both from Tardieu’s conversa¬ 
tion and from the published accounts, had impressed 
her as one of those slightly curious circumstances which 


106 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

experience had taught her it was always well to investi¬ 
gate. Hadn’t Miss Jonquille fainted in the anteroom 
of Justice? Hadn’t she been taken away by the very 
painter before whose masterpiece the judge that morn¬ 
ing had been lost in thought? A picture which had 
figured, too, in the fatal masquerade. An interesting 
little series of facts, surely. Why, then, was no men¬ 
tion made of it in the otherwise so conscientiously mi¬ 
nute reports of the journalists? 

The Botin itself was laconic in regard to Silva Jon¬ 
quille, giving merely her name and address without 
any hint as to her profession or social status. But the 
address was on the boulevard Raspail—the very num¬ 
ber to which Clara had traced the clown. 

“It isn’t much of a clue,” she mused, as she handed 
the book back to the gargon. “The man was probably 
seeing a servant-girl home. Still, he was at the pre¬ 
liminary inquiry and didn’t seem particularly anxious 
that anyone should study his face. I think I’ll try to 
find out what’s known about him, unless that also hap¬ 
pens to be a secret.” 

Fifteen minutes later she sat in the great, bleak 
office of the chief of police on the quai des Orfevres, 
with Balai regarding her inquiringly from the height 
of his official desk. He proved to be less susceptible 
to personal prejudice than Tardieu had described him, 


A WELL-RECOMMENDED SERVANT 


107 

for when she mentioned that she had been unable to 
find out all she wanted from the judge he showed 
neither surprise nor interest. 

“Your credentials are excellent, Miss Hope,” he said 
in a business-like tone. “But in regard to the bal des 
Tapettes case, Judge Tardieu and myself for once 
are agreed.” 

“Then I gather that you regard it as one of those 
cases of which the less that is known the better,” re¬ 
torted Clara somewhat tartly. 

“Did you gather that that was the attitude of the 
judge?” asked the chief, suddenly dismissing his clerk 
and beginning to study his visitor more attentively 
than before. 

“That was my impression.” 

“Then you’re certainly a good operator. The fact 
is, Judge Tardieu has the shivers about this case. He’s 
always on the lookout for some higher-up criminal, 
some omnipotent, shadowy sort of crook. Last night 
a woman known as Silva Jonquille came into our 
inquiry unasked, and fainted away. To make matters 
worse, her escort was a great artist—one of the judge’s 
special admirations. And he’s afraid that the evidence, 
if we dig into it too far, will lead to something un¬ 
pleasant.” 

“And you agree with him, m’sieu le chef?” 


108 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“I agree with him as to the tactics to be pursued— 
though I haven’t taken the trouble to tell him so. Miss 
Jonquille is one of the prize exhibits of Paris, a privi¬ 
leged character. L’Estrange, the artist in question, 
belongs to the old nobility, and would be certain to 
resent even the most perfunctory investigation of one 
of his friends. I don’t care a fig for art, but I 
know better I hope than to go out of my way to make 
the Department obnoxious to society ” 

“Still, if you had something definite against 
her-” 

“But I haven’t, nor even a suspicion. The murder 
of the Picot woman bears every mark of being the 
commonest sort of an apache affair.” 

“How about the knife? According to the papers 
there was nothing especially common about that. 
Would an apache be likely to carry such a weapon?” 

“You wouldn’t think so, would you? It was the 
knife, no doubt, which started the judge on his theory 
of an uncommon criminal. But let me tell you some¬ 
thing, Miss Hope. An apache is a Frenchman, and 
almost all Frenchmen have this artist streak in them. 
Why, I cultivate roses myself. And there is nothing 
in the world which an apache is so much interested in 
as knives. So there’s nothing extraordinary in sup¬ 
posing that this one made a hobby of rare blades.” 



A WELL-RECOMMENDED SERVANT 


109 


Clara’s face had taken on a look of resignation, as 
if she had met defeat and was prepared to accept it. 
This enhanced the startling effect of her words when 
she quietly inquired: 

“What if I could show you a distinct connection 
between Silva Jonquille and a certain apache present 
at the ball last night?” 

“Ah! That would be different.” 

The chief leaned forward on his elbows in an atti¬ 
tude of thoroughly aroused interest. Clara went on 
to tell of her glimpse of the clown and her tracking him 
to the Jonquille woman’s address. But at the end of 
her narrative Balai shook his head. 

“Excellent police work, Miss Hope,” he admitted. 
“Excellent—but it’s not enough. You only think that 
he may have been an apache from the looks of his face. 
And you don’t know that he really had anything to do 
with Miss Jonquille—he merely entered the same 
apartment house. Ordinarily such a lead would be well 
worth following. But the Department is in political 
hot water just now. A gaffe, as we call it, would ruin 
me.” 

“Just what is a gaffe, m’sieu le chef?” 

“Any sort of a foolish mistake.” 

“Then why not leave the risk of making one to me? 


no THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

It isn’t going to be so easy to identify that knife?” 

“Perhaps not.” 

“And of course you already see the difficulty of find¬ 
ing out who was in that Squid costume?” 

“Yes, he seems to have arrived in disguise. The 
Picot woman must have known him, but unfortunately 
she can no longer tell us.” 

“There remains,” said Clara, “the possibility of get¬ 
ting some information from Miss Jonquille. Are there 
no suspicious characters among her associates?” 

“No; she receives simply everybody—which is the 
same as having no associates. Of course there’s Julien 
Ferrard, her fiance. But he is harmless enough.” 

“Would you mind describing him?” 

“Why, he is also a painter, though not a very suc¬ 
cessful one. He comes of a good family, though, and 
is remarkable for nothing especially, but— mon Dieu! 
Ferrard is a little lame. I’d completely forgotten it.” 

“The Squid was also a little lame, according to the 
newspapers,” prompted Clara. “Is that what you 
mean?” 

“Exactly. It was so lame that one didn’t think to 
call it lameness.” 

“Then that, at least, is a point in Ferrard’s favor.” 

“How so?” 

“It looks as if the excess was put on—for the pur- 


A WELL-RECOMMENDED SERVANT 


hi 


pose of suggesting Ferrard. A lame man would nat¬ 
urally try to minimize his own infirmity in public, es¬ 
pecially if he were bent on maintaining a disguise for 
the purpose of committing a crime.” 

“The crime, Miss Hope, may have been unpremedi¬ 
tated.” 

“What, with all his care to arrive incog, and coming 
armed? We’re not supposing that it was an apache 
now. Surely Ferrard would have had no ordinary rea¬ 
son for carrying anything so out of keeping with his 
costume as a dagger. But of course he might have put 
on the extra lameness hoping that we would arrive at 
these very conclusions.” 

“Too subtle,” objected the chief. “The rest of your 
argument-” 

“I’ve something still better. Was Ferrard seen at 
the ball?” 

“No one reported him.” 

“Then that’s a mystery in itself, since the woman 
he is engaged to was so much in evidence. He may 
have been kept away, impersonated—who knows 
what? Come, chief! Let me find out more about 
this Silva Jonquille who first sits with l’Estrange in a 
box, then faints away at the death of an artists’ model. 
I’m not afraid of gaffes, and I’ll take everything on my 
own responsibility.” 



112 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“By Jove! If you’ll do that—if I could really get 
something on these people! But what do you want 
me to do?” 

“Can you have me recommended as a servant to one 
of Silva’s friends?” 

“Unless I flatter myself. But why not to her di¬ 
rect?” 

“Because if she has anything to hide she will be 
expecting just such a move. If, however, you know 
of a friend-” 

“There is the duchess de Fayves. She was at a 
dinner given in Mademoiselle Jonquille’s honor the 
night of the ball. But if she takes you we won’t be 
much further advanced.” 

“Leave it to me. They must exchange visits. I 
think I can manage it alone from that point.” 

Access to the duchess proved to be astonishingly 
easy, for the credentials furnished by Balai would have 
convinced a money-lender. And though the duchess 
was herself in no need of a servant, she was still 
smarting with regret at having had to refuse l’Estrange 
a favor and anxious to make any reasonable amends 
provided only that they did not cost much personal 
sacrifice. 

“If you are willing to go into a new establishment,” 
she began, when Clara had been introduced, “I think I 



THE WELL-RECOMMENDED SERVANT 113 

can place you, temporarily at least. An acquaintance 
of mine is moving into larger quarters, and I dare say 
is anxious for all the help she can get.” 

Clara waited patiently for the name and address, 
and was barely able to repress a start when she learned 
that she was being sent to Silva Jonquille in person. 
This was sheer luck. The address, too, was unex¬ 
pected. 

“Boulevard St. Germain,” said the duchess. “She’s 
going to spend the season in a house belonging to 
l’Estrange, the painter.” 

This was the climax. 


CHAPTER VII 


A MANSION AND ITS INMATES 

Silva Jonquille arrived at her new residence late 
on the morning following her talk with Mrs. Granger. 
She had carefully avoided all appearance of moving, 
thinking it better not even to bring a trunk, and the 
maid, Leontine, following her from the public taxicab, 
carried all her luggage in a couple of suit-cases. 

The door of the mansion was opened by a slightly 
stoop-shouldered but very dignified manservant with 
a pale, smooth-shaven face, hair so dark that it sug¬ 
gested an attempt to hide his age, and eyes which 
peered out with near-sighted anxiety from behind a 
pair of gold-rimmed, violet-tinted glasses. 

“Are you-?” 

“I am Peters, ma’am. The Grangers have already 
arrived, and Mr. Julien, I believe, is in the studio. 
Madame’s room is ready. Shall I show her to it?” 

“Not yet, Peters. How did you know me?” 

“But nobody else was expected, ma’am. Besides, if 
114 



A MANSION AND ITS INMATES 115 

you will pardon my saying so, I saw you here the night 
of your dinner, though I was just home from England 
and did not serve.” 

“I see. Did—did the doorman I sent you put in 
an appearance?” 

“The individual calling himself La Haquenee, m’am? 
He did, though I rather fancied it was some mistake. 
Indeed, I’d hoped that madame would let me chose 
the other servants.” 

“I’m sorry, Peters, but I’m afraid you’ll have to put 
up with those we have.” 

“But surely you’ll allow me to change the creature’s 
name? Haquenee, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, 
means horse. Now if I might call him Bidet, which 
also means horse, it would at least sound more re¬ 
spectable.” 

“As to that, settle it with him. I’m not particular.” 

“Very good, m’am. And what am I to do about 
Mrs. Granger? She insists on working , ma’am. She 
has practically taken control of the kitchen, and her 
husband and daughter—but perhaps I am going too far 
in expressing myself?” 

“No, no. Tell me. What are they doing?” 

“The gentleman is peeling potatoes, and the young 
lady is wiping the dishes which are to be used for 
luncheon. I—-—” 



n6 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“I know, Peters. It is dreadful/’ cried Silva, stifled 
with sudden laughter. “But what am I to do? You 
see, Mrs. Granger is quite beyond my control.” 

“Yes, ma’am. In that case there’s only one thing 
more. A young woman called, asking for a position 
as maid of general housework.” 

“A bonne a tout jaire? Oh, I hope you didn’t en¬ 
gage her. Of course we need one, but-” 

“No, ma’am. I told her that I had no authority. 
But she insisted on waiting.” 

“Then tell her to go. I can’t have strangers in the 
house.” 

And waving Leontine before her, Silva started for 
the suite on the second floor which had been prepared 
for her own especial use. But she hadn’t taken six 
steps before Peters came hurrying after her, bearing 
a silver tray. 

“I forgot to say,” he apologized, “that there was a 
letter for you.” 

“From the duchess of Fayves,” murmured Silva in 
surprise, hurriedly breaking the ducal seal. 

“I couldn’t possibly arrange things so as to become 
one of your charming household,” the duchess had 
written, “and yet I was desolate not to be able to do 
something for you on account of our mutual friend. 
Fortunately it happens that a young woman with the 



A MANSION AND ITS INMATES 117 

best imaginable recommendations has just presented 
herself, and I am sending her on as I know that you, 
with that big house on your hands, will be glad of all 
the service you can get. She (Clara Hope is her name) 
has been in the service of one of my most intimate 
acquaintances, now living abroad, and I am writing 
this so that you will know that the note I gave her for 
you was not prompted merely by a desire to get rid 
of her.” 

“It’s about the new girl,” said Silva, handing the 
open letter to Peters. “This of course alters the mat¬ 
ter and you will kindly engage her at once.” 

It was thus that the blundering and clumsy Law, 
assisted for once by a fine instrument, succeeded in 
penetrating the carefully guarded stronghold of the 
faubourgh St. Germain as easily as if it had been a 
common boarding-house. Clara, once formally in¬ 
stalled, was less elated than surprised. This was not 
the sort of a household she had expected to find about 
La Gadelle, the privileged beauty of Bohemian Paris. 

In the first place, there was Peters, so haughtily 
correct and English. It was difficult to think of him 
as serving anybody not legitimately listed either in 
Burke’s Peerage or the Almanack de Gotha. He was, 
she soon learned, a hold-over from the l’Estrange 
menage. But what about the stout, obviously Ameri- 


n8 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

can woman who bustled into the room where she had 
insisted on waiting until the mistress’s arrival—a 
woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Granger, called 
her “my dear,” told her to make herself perfectly at 
home, and volunteered the information that she and her 
husband and daughter were old neighbors of Silva’s? 
Wholesome, vigorous New England morality fairly 
radiated from Mrs. Granger’s face, while the daughter, 
Millie, who came in shortly after her, was a charming 
picture of modern but unsullied girlhood. 

Of the red-faced man, wearing a skull-cap as if to 
protect a scantily thatched cranium from the morning 
chill, she was not quite so sure. He was undoubtedly 
Granger, for no sooner had she caught sight of him, 
sticking his head in at the door about five minutes 
after his wife and Millie had gone, than she heard him 
called with marital authority by a voice that was un¬ 
mistakable. 

“Eben!” repeated Clara to herself. “Eben Gran¬ 
ger. He’s evidently a character, though whether he’s 
as foolish as he looks remains to be seen. He comes 
from America—that’s the main point.” 

Indeed it was the one thing which impressed her, 
this bevy of Americans claiming to be Silva Jonquille’s 
townsfolk. It was in the United States that Marie, 
alias Le Caillou, the supposed Squid, had first given 


A MANSION AND ITS INMATES 119 

signs of existence. Was she on the trail at last, or 
was here but a chance coincidence, a will-o’-the-wisp 
tending to lead her astray? Like Silva’s sudden 
change of domicile, it might mean much—or nothing at 
all. She determined to wait and not to theorize. 

The arrival of Silva and her personal maid she 
viewed from a distance and with considerable disquie¬ 
tude until the letter from the duchess was produced. 
Up to that point it was plain, from the easily under¬ 
stood pantomime, that the chances of an intruder in 
that house were few and far between. The letter, how¬ 
ever, changed everything, and Clara was preparing to 
hide her eagerness in accepting the coming engage¬ 
ment when she was visited—not by Peters but by La 
Haquenee, whom she recognized with an inward start 
of astonishment. 

“You’re to stay,” he announced, in easy-rolling 
patois. “I’m to show you your room. Viens ” 

“Then why does the maitre d’hotel come and en¬ 
gage me?” demanded Clara, in more correct but less 
rolling French. 

“Peters’ll see you later,” grinned the doorman. 
“Just now he’s peeved at having you put in over his 
head. This is a hard day for le maitre. First me, 
then the Grangers, and now you. He’s used to having 
hit under-servants cut out of cardboard.” 


120 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

Clara walked thoughtfully to her quarters in the 
servants’ wing, carrying her own bag. The sight of 
La Haquenee actually in the service of the new estab¬ 
lishment thrilled her in much the same way as the find¬ 
ing of a human footprint in the sand must have thrilled 
Crusoe upon his desolate island. How had he come 
there? Was he an old servitor of La Gadelle’s? Cer¬ 
tainly he did not look the part. Those thin, mobile 
white hands, which might have been a pick-pocket’s, 
that handsome, cruel and for the moment good- 
naturedly insolent face bespoke the apache, the out- 
and-out and daring criminal more clearly than ever. 
What possible event, recent or of long ago, could have 
thrown him into Silva Jonquille’s path? That was 
something which must be discovered. In the mean¬ 
while his very presence gave an air of significance to 
her initial success. She had not introduced herself into 
this outwardly so impeccable mansion for nothing, and 
might be able to accomplish much, even supposing that 
the forgery of her original letter to the duchess should 
eventually become known. 

And suddenly it came over her—the sense of near¬ 
ness to the heart of some great mystery. The bright, 
sunlit corridors were dark as with unseen shadows, 
the very curtains of her amazingly sumptuous servant’s 
room sinister with the spirit of a haunting, indescrib- 


A MANSION AND ITS INMATES 121 

able, impalpable danger. At the same time the absence 
of McClue, her total ignorance of his whereabouts and 
even of his continued existence, struck her like a blow. 
If only she could have felt him as clearly as she felt 
the presence of something monstrous, of something too 
evil for normal comprehension and only faintly to be 
described even by such a word as The Squid! 

But what a mansion it was in which she found her¬ 
self. It had, when rid of all haunting and imaginary 
phantoms, an air of exquisite, chastened luxury—a lux¬ 
ury not attributable to the abundance of its furnish¬ 
ings but rather to the studied absence of any object 
which was not either strikingly beautiful or actually 
conductive to comfort. White-painted woodwork; 
staircases of the simplest possible construction but of 
masterly grace and workmanship; windows fitted with 
ancient diamond-shaped panes or else of utterly trans¬ 
parent plate and opening upon balconys with stone 
balustrades of a fashion not to be obtained of the mod¬ 
ern builder at any price; enormous, high-ceilinged 
rooms with parquet floors, of an emptiness suggesting 
Japanese interiors save for here and there a rug, a bit 
of tapestry, a table worthy of a place among heirlooms 
and now and then an unexpected burst of color in some 
mural decoration; the flash of an ancient silver sconce, 


122 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

or the soft gleam of a piece of statuary—these were 
the features which chiefly claimed attention. 

“I have dreamed of such places/’ breathed Clara, 
taking advantage of her momentary liberty to make a 
tour of inspection. “The l’Estrange touch is every¬ 
where, and anything more innocent and fine I never 
saw. How can crime or criminals have any possible 
foothold in the house of such an artist?” 

She wandered down to the grand salon on the first 
floor, half inclined to believe that the house after all 
was a sufficient guarantee for its inhabitants, when— 
passing on to the main dining-hall—she chanced to wit¬ 
ness an encounter between La Haquenee and Silva’s 
maid. Leontine was carrying a small package, which 
she handed to the apache without a word. He, in turn, 
slipped it into his pocket, and the two separated, un¬ 
aware that they had been watched yet with an air of 
secrecy and understanding of the worst possible 
augury. 

A moment later, through an open door, Clara caught 
sight of Millie Granger, her face flushed with pleas¬ 
urable excitement. She was almost immediately 
joined by La Gadelle, who halted her to ask: 

“Where is Mr. Ferrard, do you know?” 

“He’s upstairs in the studio,” said Millie. 

“But I’ve just come from there.” 


A MANSION AND ITS INMATES 123 

“I know. He has been taking me around the house, 
showing it to me. But you’ll find him in the studio 
now, if he hasn’t gone to get ready for lunch.” 

It seemed for an instant as if the two women were 
regarding each other askance, instinctively taking each 
other’s measure—the one so young and fresh, with all 
the weapons of youth lying as yet untried within her 
reach; the other ripe, exotic, skilled, but already past 
the zenith of her power. And then Miss Jonquille 
lightly patted her guest upon the cheek, hoped that 
she was going to be happy in her new home, and turned 
away in the direction of a smaller dining-room where 
lunch was being prepared. Could it be that the two 
already were rivals, that they sensed a coming enmity 
and had in that short instant begun hostilities? If so, 
the combat promised to be long and deadly, as neither 
looked as if she would easily give up. 

Seeing the way clear, Clara retreated to the top of 
the house, reminded that she herself had yet to visit 
this studio where so many famous canvases must have 
been painted. A young man, limping slightly but 
otherwise attractive enough, was just coming out of 
the door. This, of course, was Julien Ferrard. And so 
absorbed was he in his own—and to judge from appear¬ 
ances not very pleasant—thoughts that he passed her 
without a sign of being aware of her presence. 


124 THE trail of the squid 

But it was the studio which interested Clara chiefly. 
A huge, square chamber, occupying more than half of 
the garret floor, the slating of the original mansard 
roof largely supplanted by glass, it was evidently de¬ 
signed solely with an eye to utility and convenience. A 
heap of logs in a mammoth fire-place lay ready to give 
a touch of artificial warmth should the weather demand 
it, and there was a model’s throne, a table, a screen or 
two, a few chairs and other necessary properties. Its 
pictures alone, however, gave it its tone. They covered 
the walls, loaded down the easels and rose in heaps in 
the corners. And it was something about these pic¬ 
tures, or rather about two of them, which sent that 
tingle down the intruder’s spine, apprising her that she 
stood on the brink of discovery. 

One of these, a wash-drawing not yet finished and 
standing on an easel by itself, was conspicuous from its 
brazen lack of harmony with the rest of the collection. 
It represented a young girl vigorously scrubbing her 
face with a cake of soap. The composition was simple, 
commonplace and engagingly comic, and Clara saw at 
a glance that its model must have been Millie Granger. 
Not yet fairly settled in the house, and already having 
La Gadelle’s rival in youth if not in beauty pose for 
him! Did Ferrard really feel so sure of himself as to 
dare the anger of his fiancee (and such a fiancee!), or 


A MANSION AND ITS INMATES 


125 

was he recklessly seeking distraction from thoughts too 
terrifying to be borne? 

The other picture opened an entirely different vista 
of possibilities. It was a landscape done in oils in what 
she was by this time able to recognize instantly as the 
PEstrange manner; and it was propped precariously 
on a chair, as if it had been hastily lifted from the 
easel and thrown aside—unquestionable masterpiece 
as it was. But what riveted her attention was an ugly 
gray smudge in the foreground, where most of the 
paint had been removed by turpentine and scraping. 

Was this but a bit of correction or alteration, under¬ 
taken by the artist himself and left unfinished? She 
felt certain that it was not, though she was compelled 
to base her judgment upon the still fresh smell of the 
turpentine rather than upon any technical knowledge of 
painting in general. 

She had heard of the rivalries of art and of the unbe¬ 
lievable heights to which they were sometimes carried. 
Could this be an instance in point, a jealous clawing at 
the edges of a beautiful thing, with the intent to restore 
it to approximately its original condition, thus giving it 
a blemish not easily detected but certain to provoke 
criticism if once exposed to the public? Her training 
was inadequate for weighing the likelihood or unlikeli¬ 
hood of such a proceeding. She wished she knew more 


126 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

of art, wished above all that she could guess what the 
picture originally looked like. There might once have 
been a figure in this ruined area of foreground, and 
with knowledge of the figure one might arrive at a 
thousand motives for its erasure at the hands of some¬ 
body. Everything, too, pointed to Julien as the some¬ 
body in question. He had the run of the place and all 
its treasures were at his mercy. 

But as she made the round of the canvases, looking 
for other signs of molestation and finding none, her 
thoughts gradually left Julien aside and took a wider 
circle. It was dawning upon her that there might be 
an explanation, simpler than any which she had as yet 
entertained, to account for l’Estrange’s connection with 
a very dark and doubtful business. She had looked 
upon him as a possible admirer of Silva’s, certainly as 
a partisan of a group of people whose conduct left 
much to be explained. But what if he were the victim, 
the real object of the whole attack? What if the sus¬ 
picious circumstances in which even Ferrard and La 
Gadelle found themselves, were the result of some 
larger and more far-reaching plot of which they were 
either the tools or the innocent playthings? 

She had been struck from the first by the seeming 
inadequacy of the actors in this drama which she felt 


A MANSION AND ITS INMATES 


127 

to be moving around her. But perhaps she had not yet 
encountered the star performer, the playwright. 

Clara was very much overwrought, and suddenly 
felt the need of her partner. Dear old Mac, with his 
paradoxes and boyish whimsicalities! If he were there, 
would he laugh at the picture of the girl with the cake 
of soap, or give all his attention to the damaged land¬ 
scape? Without him she could neither laugh nor think 
to any purpose, so she came very near to crying in¬ 
stead. For just now, reaching out as it were in the 
dark, blindly speculating upon the possibilities of the 
situation, it had been as if her fingers had come in 
vague but unmistakable contact with one of the clammy 
tentacles of The Squid. 


CHAPTER VIII 


SIDE LIGHTS 

“The most difficult person in the house to get along 
with,” wrote Clara a few days later in a report which 
she was preparing for the juge d’instruction, “is the 
English butler, Peters. 

“The first day I was here I happened to come down 
late to the servants’ luncheon, and he insisted on wait¬ 
ing on me and calling me ‘lady,’ as if I were one of 
the guests. Since this unamiable bit of sarcasm he has 
avoided me, and absolutely refuses to give me any 
orders. So I go about much as I please, helping Mrs. 
Granger or doing whatever needs to be done—all on 
my own initiative. 

“The obvious explanation, of course, is that he is 
put out at not being allowed to engage his own staff 
and hopes that if left to my own devices I will demon¬ 
strate my uselessness to everybody and pave the way 
for my own discharge. It may be, too, that he sus¬ 
pects that I’m not what I pretend to be, and as a faith- 
128 


SIDE LIGHTS 


129 


ful servitor of the house is giving me rope to help me 
hang myself, as the saying is. 

“But there is another thing I want to say about 
Peters—much more startling and not to be questioned 
at all. Nobody here has ever seen him before. I’ve 
had to be very discreet in my inquiries, but am no 
longer in doubt of the fact. A man named Peters has 
been in the l’Estrange service for a long time, but left 
for England to visit relatives before La Gadelle was 
ever entertained here. He returned the night of her 
dinner, or the night of the bal des Tapettes, if you pre¬ 
fer— a t least so it is said—but did not show himself. 
He was on hand the morning that Silva, the Grangers, 
Silva’s maid and La Haquenee arrived. L’Estrange 
had already gone, and he had to introduce himself. 
He seems to conform to the description which l’Es¬ 
trange gave Silva of his faithful butler, but that is 
as far as the identification goes. 

“Now how do we know that this Peters is the real 
Peters at all? That the real Peters isn’t dead or other¬ 
wise disposed of? Who knows what happened be¬ 
tween the departure of l’Estrange and the arrival of 
the Grangers, who were the first ones to whom this 
butler afterwards opened the door? We don’t, cer¬ 
tainly, and I for one find it impossible to take it for 
granted that the present Peters is the man that l’Es- 


130 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

trange left in charge. You can see, after what I’ve 
already written in regard to the likelihood of a plot 
against the painter, how exceedingly grave is even the 
mere chance that such a substitution can have been 
made. 

“I have tried every means but one to make Peters 
talk to me, whoever he really is. But results are nega¬ 
tive. I hate to go further, though he looks to me most 
decidedly like a man who has an Achilles’ heel, and 
the feeling of desperation which sometimes comes over 
me is likely to lead me into anything.” 

She wrote several pages more about the case, with¬ 
out however saying what means she had left untried 
or explaining what she meant by an Achilles’ heel. 
Then she sealed the letter and went to post it, her 
movements being covered by a lucky order to go out 
and buy some cigarettes for Ferrard. 

When she sought him in the studio later for the 
purpose of delivering her purchase, he was so busy 
adjusting an easel close to the north light that she 
was able to slip behind a Japanese screen at the other 
end of the room. 

What occupied him was the damaged landscape 
already noted, and after regarding it for several min¬ 
utes with an almost ferocious stare, the young man 
snatched a brush and began covering the smudge with 


SIDE LIGHTS 


131 


a soft green tint matching the surrounding foliage. So 
absorbed was he in his work that he failed to notice 
even a second opening of the door and the entrance of 
Millie Granger, who walked half way across the floor 
before she stopped to exclaim: 

“Why, Julien! What is the matter?” 

He started, nearly dropped his brush, then smiled 
and laid aside both brush and palette. 

“Oh, it’s you. Come and sit down.” 

“But I’m disturbing you. I never saw you look so 
cross.” 

“If I looked cross it was before I saw you. That 
shows you were not to blame, n’est-ce pas?” 

“I suppose it does.” Millie shoved forward a camp- 
stool and established herself by his elbow. “But what 
in the world are you doing? Isn’t that a l’Estrange?” 

“Of course.” 

“And something has happened to it which you’re 
trying to fix?” 

“C'est pas grave , mon atnie. I’m merely finding out 
that I can’t paint.” 

“You don’t mean that you scraped all that off?” 

“That’s nothing. It was a simple bit. My fingers 
are not so all thumbs that I can’t restore that.” 

“But what did you do it for?” 

“I wanted to find out how l’Estrange comes at his 


132 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

effects. He doesn’t seem to do anything extraordinary 
at all. They are merely there—simple, transparent, 
without any trickery. But of course I didn’t dare dig 
into one of his really good bits.” 

“I think you are perfectly foolhardy, Julien, as it 
is. But you paint splendidly. Ma thinks so, too, and 
she’s going to let me take lessons of you instead of 
down town. I told you that soap-girl would bring her 
around.” 

“That! I mean mat art.” 

“I think,” said Millie, “I like you better when you 
merely try to make something pretty. You’re not so 
savage.” 

“Then stay just as you are for a minute. Si’l vous 
plait , don’t move.” 

Hurriedly he reached for a drawing-board upon 
which a number of sheets had been fixed with thumb¬ 
tacks, found a bit of crayon and began sketching. In 
ten minutes there was another portrait, not humorous 
like the soap-girl study but much more tenderly pen¬ 
sive in its expression. 

“Oh, my!” cried the girl, clapping her hands. “It 
would do for dress-goods, furs, perfumery—something 
like that.” 

“If I were to try to color it I don’t know where I’d 


SIDE LIGHTS 


133 


find the paint,” Julien remarked reflectively. “But 
what do you mean by dress-goods and perfumery?” 

“I was thinking of ads.” 

“What are ads? You know my English isn’t very 
good.” 

“Advertisements, of course. In America we adver¬ 
tise everything almost with the picture of a girl. Why 
don’t you try it? They pay immense prices.” 

“For such things?” 

“Heaps and heaps. I’ve a friend in Washington 
Square, New York, and last year she made five thou¬ 
sand dollars just by furnishing wash-drawings for fash¬ 
ion-plates. But I suppose you’d think it beneath your 
dignity to work for money.” 

“Millie I If you only knew what it would mean to 
me—freedom, independence, to be able to get out of 
all this—this straining for the impossible, I mean. 
Yet doing ads might amount to the same thing in the 
end.” 

“How?” 

“I might try and not succeed.” 

“It’s not considered a crime in my country—trying.” 

“Would it really be worth while?” 

He gave her a glance so direct and full of meaning 
that she colored and turned away, answering only 
after an interval: 


134 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


“You brood too much. It’s always worth while to 
try to amount to something. Come, do that sketch 
over in India ink, add a salad bowl and have me stir¬ 
ring it with a big spoon.” 

Deftly he re-made the drawing according to the new 
specifications, then washed in a bit of water-color. 

“Voila!” 

“‘Simpson’s Scrumptious Salad Dressing I’ It only 
lacks the caption,” declared Millie with enthusiasm. 
“If you want to go at it seriously, I’ll pose for you 
every day. Here, now. Imagine that this stick is a 
toothbrush and that there’s a washbowl and mirror in 
front of me. See what you can do towards advertising 
‘Denton’s Dental Delight.’ Be sure to give me big, 
lovely white teeth, and take your time. I’ll sell it for 
you for real money through my Washington Square 
friend.” 

The afternoon light was growing pale when the 
two went out, Millie laughing and chatting and even 
Julien in amazingly good spirits for a man who had so 
recently given evidence of being at the bottom of some 
somber and hidden Slough of Despond. Clara Hope, 
emerging from her place of concealment, found herself 
almost unable to stand, so benumbed was she from 
her long period of enforced movelessness. But what 
was she to think of Julien’s explanation of the tamper- 


SIDE LIGHTS 


135 


ing which had been practiced upon l’Estrange’s pic¬ 
ture? Could he really have been trying merely to 
arrive at some technical secret? She could not believe 
it. His expression, his whole attitude had hinted at 
some much more desperate and emotion-stirring enter¬ 
prise. 

“And I don’t even know that it was actually Julien 
who did the original damage,” she said to herself as 
she walked slowly to the exit. “He may have been 
trying to cover up something done by somebody else. 
And now Millie has him in tow. I wonder what will 
come of it?” 

Looking down over the balustrade in the corridor, 
she discovered that the pair had encountered Silva 
Jonquille, who, in an extravagantly lovely gown of 
dark blue silk covered with silver spangles, was seated 
in a niche beside a piece of statuary on the landing 
below. A few moments of casual conversation ensued, 
after which Millie proceeded on downstairs alone. 

“Would you mind coming into the courtyard?” 
Silva’s voice floated up. “I’m stifled in the house, and 
I want to talk with you.” 

Clara retreated to the studio and looked out upon 
the court referred to. The atmosphere was growing 
chilly. One must be indeed excited to feel stifled. 
More likely it was privacy rather than fresh air that 


136 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


was being sought. But how was she to overhear the 
coming interview? The windows were too high from 
the ground to promise much, and she did not like to 
risk going to a lower floor and probably encountering 
somebody on the way. There remained the resource 
offered by a large tree, one limb of which brushed 
against the balcony before her. If she could venture 
out upon that-” 

It seemed like a dizzy undertaking, especially with 
her muscles still in rebellious unsteadiness from the 
trial she had just gone through. Yet she ventured. And 
after one horrible moment of doubt, when it looked 
as if the feat could never be accomplished, she found 
herself crouching safely on the main branch and close 
to the quietly splashing fountain. Here, on a bench 
almost directly beneath her, Silva and Ferrard shortly 
seated themselves. 

“Et maintenant?” 

"It’s just this,” brought out Silva, in such vehement 
and rapid French that the listener could only follow 
her with difficulty. “Do you think you have the right 
to make love to an innocent young girl?” 

“Love? She merely has posed for me once or twice 
and wants to take painting lessons.” 

“Isn’t that enough?” 

“Certainly, if you object. But I don’t like the 


SIDE LIGHTS 


i 37 


grounds you put it on. You speak as if I wasn’t fit 
to make love to her.” 

“Are you?” 

“Why not, apart from my being engaged to you?” 

“And you can ask that!” 

Silva sat silent for a moment, clutching her hands 
in her lap. 

“If you only knew,” she went on, finally, “how I 
tremble every time the doorbell rings, what agonizing 
nights I pass.” 

“I’m not very pleasantly situated, myself,” returned 
Julien. “Millie is an escape. She helps me to forget 
that any of the horrible nightmare ever happened, 
that’s all.” 

“It may be all now, but are you sure you mean noth¬ 
ing to her? Don’t protest. It’s so dreadfully natural 
in both of you. But a new love is impossible to one 
in your position. So I don’t think it my duty to give 
you up, and I shan’t.” 

“Soil. But you might as well accuse me of commit¬ 
ting the murder and have done with it.” 

(( Julien, I know you did it. WTiy do you avoid me 
and refuse to take me into your confidence? It makes 
no difference to me—nothing can.” 

Ferrard got up and walked moodily around the foun¬ 
tain, then slowly returned to his seat and said: 


138 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“I know, appearances are all against me. Still you 
might give me the benefit of the doubt.” 

“There is no doubt. That knife which the police 
found is the blade of my misericorde.” 

“How do you know?” 

Julien’s voice showed sudden agitation, but Silva’s 
reply was in a note of forced calm: 

“La Haquenee recognized it and came to me to 
demand blackmail. That’s why I have taken him into 
my service and am paying him until we can escape 
from France. What worries me is the hilt. Every¬ 
body would recognize that, and it’s gone. The police 
haven’t found it. Did you throw it away?” 

“Silva, there’s some dreadful mystery in this. I 
never touched your knife. I wasn’t even at the ball.” 

“That’s what you told l’Estrange at first.” 

“He said that, did he?” 

“Naturally. He supposed that you’d make a clean 
breast of everything to me.” 

“And did he say that I was guilty?” 

“No, he insisted that you were innocent, though he 
couldn’t give any reason.” 

“Well, I can’t give any reason, either—no proof, that 
is. But the story I told him first was true, the rest 
was a lie.” 

“You lied to him? Why?” 


SIDE LIGHTS 


139 


“I don’t know. His incredulity frightened me, I 
think, and then it made me mad. So I made up a yarn, 
the most plausible one I could think of. He seemed 
to believe that.” 

“I’m sure he did. But Julien, you must tell me what 
really happened. Don’t you see that your very life 
may depend upon my ability to help you?” 

“L’Estrange has told you already, you say.” 

“Never mind—repeat it.” 

Ferrard looked around him as if to make certain 
that they were alone, and answered in a lowered voice: 

“I went to Rougette’s, just as I said I would. She 
laid out my costume for me and then offered me a 
drink of something. I woke up hours later without 
realizing at first that I had been asleep. The costume 
was gone. Rougette was gone. And looking at my 
watch I found that it was almost morning. The real 
murderer is the man she substituted for me and put 
into that Squid make-up.” 

“But Julien, what was her motive? You’re making 
her an accomplice to her own murder. And you haven’t 
accounted for my poignard—unless you had it with 
you.” 

“I tell you, I never had it with me. Where did you 
get the thing, anyway? I remember asking you once, 
and you wouldn’t tell.” 


140 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“It was from a man who used to love me—years 
ago. He also sent me the desk with the secret drawer 
to keep it in, together with a letter telling me that if 
I ever parted with it I would have bad luck. The 
next day he committed suicide.” 

“And you kept it?” 

“Yes; I was superstitious, I suppose. For he stab¬ 
bed himself, and the knife he did it with was never 
found. You must have read about it—it was called 
The phantom dagger case/ ” 

“I remember. He was supposed to have thrown it 
out of the window into a passing cart. But it couldn’t 
have been your knife.” 

“No, I had that first. And yet, afterwards, when I 
went to look at it, there was fresh blood on it, though 
the blade was perfectly bright when it came.” 

“What nonsense! You imagined it.” 

“No, the blood was certainly there. No doubt I cut 
my finger without knowing it—I was so dreadfully 
upset.” 

“And yet you continued to keep it—even to show it, 
sometimes.” 

“Oh, it fascinated me after that. I often used to 
go and look to see if the blade was still clean. The 
impulse sometimes came over me even when I had 
company. My showing it then was a sort of bravado.” 


SIDE LIGHTS 


141 

“I had no idea, Silva, that your nerves were in such 
a state.” 

“My dear, you don’t know half. I even imagine 
sometimes that-” 

Before she could say more, a pebble rattled across 
the brick pavement of the court. Clara, almost as 
startled as were the two by the fountain, thought at 
first that she herself must have dropped something. 
But there lay the pebble plainly in sight where it had 
stopped rolling, and fortunately nobody looked up 

“It’s as if there were ghosts in the house,” Silva 
shuddered. “I feel them watching.” 

“That was no ghost,” declared Ferrard getting to 
his feet. “Somebody threw a stone over the wall from 
the street, that’s all. But it’s getting late. Let’s go in.” 

“Yes; there is something I was going to tell you, 
but it can wait. This is no longer a place for us to sit 
and talk.” 

Clara returned to the studio by the way she had 
come. So, the knife which had killed Rougette Picot 
belonged to Silva Jonquille, and had been kept in a 
secret nook to which Ferrard had access. Could any 
evidence be more damning? And he had not only 
been scheduled to play The Squid at the ball, but had 
told conflicting stories in one of which he admitted that 
he had gone there according to program. She had 


142 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


but to report this interview to the chief of police, and 
the Law at least would be eternally satisfied. 

Clara, however, was not satisfied at all. The chain 
of evidence was too perfect to be natural. What demon 
of ill-luck could have pursued a man that he would 
commit a murder with a marked knife, and not be 
able to call upon a single witness to support the alibi 
which he offered in defense? His fiancee, it is true, 
had accused him directly and to his face. But that 
proved nothing, and Silva herself needed much explain¬ 
ing. What was one to think of her with her wild talk 
about daggers which collected fresh blood-stains from 
distant suicides, her seemingly whole-hearted accept¬ 
ance of a murderous lover, her avowed and unbounded 
jealousy? 

Moreover, there was that pebble which had inter¬ 
rupted her in the midst of her talk. It had not been 
thrown from the street, as Julien suggested, but from 
the direction of the house. Clara had caught sight of 
it before it ceased to move. It rather looked as if her 
presence had been discovered and the pebble thrown 
as a warning. 

It was perhaps half an hour later when—passing 
Silva’s suite—she saw the door of the dressing-room 
open and her mistress standing upon the threshold in 

grand dishabille. 


SIDE LIGHTS 


i43 


“Clara,” she called, “do you know where Leontine 
is?” 

“No, madame.” 

“Then you’ll have to disturb Mrs. Granger. It’s 
almost time for dinner and I must have somebody to 
help me with my hair.” 

“Can’t you let me do it?” 

“Certainly,” answered Silva, “if you think you know 
how.” And throwing herself into a low chair before 
the dressing-table, she added: 

“Leontine oughtn’t to leave me this way. She’s 
becoming negligent—and I wanted to look my best 
tonight.” 

Clara plunged her fingers eagerly into that luxuriant, 
red-gold chevelure which she found before her, thank¬ 
ful of this unexpected opportunity of getting better ac¬ 
quainted A woman having her hair done is prover¬ 
bially loquacious and inclined to be off her guard, and 
this time there would be no interrupting pebbles. 

“Madame has wonderful hair,” she ventured. “I 
should think, though, it would make her head ache, 
there’s so much of it.” 

“I have dreadful headaches,” Silva admitted, “but 
I’m afraid they don’t come from my hair.” 

“From sleeplessness, then?” 


i 4 4 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“More likely. I’m a wretched sleeper. And such 
dreams! Do you believe in dreams, child?” 

“Oh, yes, madame. Those that we dream before 
midnight often come true. But they go by contraries 
if we dream them after.” 

And having thus adopted the superstitious attitude 
which might be expected of one in her supposed sta¬ 
tion, she added at random: 

“Sometimes I can hardly tell what I dream from 
what really happens. They’re so vivid, you know, 
especially the bad ones.” 

La Gadelle started violently, complained unjustly of 
the way in which the comb was being used, then broke 
out quite inconsistently into praise: 

“I declare, my dear, you’re an artist, in some ways 
better even than Leon tine.” 

Adding at the end of a long scrutiny of her reflected 
image: 

“Your ideas, though, are too much like Mrs. 
Granger’s.” 

“What ideas, ma’am?” 

“Don’t you see? The work is very cleverly done, 
but my hair is too low in my neck. There is no effect 
of bizarrerie. I look so domestic that I hardly know 
myself.” 

“But, madame , it’s so becoming. Unless you’re go- 


SIDE LIGHTS 


US 


ing to act the vampire, what’s the use trying to look 
like one?” 

“Plait-il?” 

“I mean,” stammered Clara, abashed by her own 
boldness, “a little less extravagance might be a wel¬ 
come change.” 

“Welcome to whom?” 

“To anyone who might have grown tired of the 
bizarre.” 

“I don’t suppose you mean to be impertinent?” 

“Oh, no, ma’am! But I can’t help having eyes.” 

“Evidently not. And no doubt everybody else has 
them, too. You’ve seen what he is doing in the studio 
.—he and his new model. I’m forgetting myself, and 
before a servant. But I can’t help it. Things are get¬ 
ting to be more than I can bear.” 

And throwing dignity to the winds, the Red Cur¬ 
rant burst into tears. 

Clara, to whom all display of emotion was usually 
hateful, felt a sudden pity for this proud beauty so 
evidently struggling in deep waters. 

“Madame must not cry,” she said softly. “It will 
spoil her eyes.” 

“You really want me to be pretty? I’ve fancied 
that you didn’t quite like me.” 

“Perhaps I didn’t until now.” 


i 4 6 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“What reason have you to like me now?” 

“I don’t know. None, really. I just can’t help it.” 

“Clara, you are a bit like Mrs. Granger. I almost 
hated her at first, she was so bent on depreciating any 
strangeness or originality—the very things I’ve been at 
such pains to cultivate. But I’m beginning to see— 
oh, why couldn’t I have learned to know people of 
your sort sooner?” 

“Anyway, you know her now.” 

“Too late—and it always was, I fancy. She has 
been telling me of my grandfather. He was a man 
I was never permitted to ask questions about when I 
was a child, yet I always felt just from seeing his 
picture that there was some affinity between us. I 
know now what it was.” 

“What?” 

“He was insane.” 

“No—surely not that!” 

“At least just as bad. If he wasn’t a lunatic, he 
had to retire anyway to an institution to hide from 
public opinion. He died there. But some of his habits 
haven’t yet been forgotten by the neighbors.” 

“May I ask what habits?” 

“Monstrous ones. He was a doctor, and he loved 
they say to torture animals.” 

Clara reflected. A physician of irregular life and a 


SIDE LIGHTS 


147 


scientific bent, living in a country town, accused of 
vivisection and ending his days in a hospital for 
inebriates—that was probably the truth of the story. 

“So I wouldn’t worry about it,” she declared, when 
she had sufficiently expounded her country-town 
theory. 

“You’re certainly comforting,” said the other, dry¬ 
ing her eyes, “though sometimes I don’t know whether 
I want to believe that I’m in my right mind or not.” 

“What, ma’am?” 

“Nothing. Don’t pay attention to what I say. Just 
bathe my face in rose water and put on a little powder, 
and I’ll leave the hair as it is—if that will please you.” 

Clara reached to a row of cut-glass bottles standing 
upon the toilet-table, took up one labeled Eau de Rose , 
removed the stopper and gave the contents a prelim¬ 
inary shake. Her finger tip, coming in contact with 
the stuff, began to burn. A drop applied to her arm 
was like a tiny coal of fire, which left a bright red 
mark before she could wash it off. 

“What is it?” asked Silva. 

“I don’t know,” said Clara, sniffing cautiously at 
the bottle. “It smells like some kind of-” 

“Vitriol!” cried the other, snatching the bottle from 

her hand. 

She sank back, a trembling heap, into her chair, 


i 4 8 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

and answered mechanically when Clara asked if she 
ordinarily kept any vitriol about: 

“Yes, I suppose so. Everybody keeps it for clean¬ 
ing brasses and such things.” 

“Then this bottle must have been filled up with it 
by mistake. You see it’s partly rose water as it is.” 

“You’re right. Of course, it must have been. But 
you nearly used it on my face. I’d have been dis¬ 
figured for life.” 

“Never mind what might have happened. The mis¬ 
take must have been made in the hurry while you 
were packing up to move.” 

“Then you don’t think that anybody could have 
done it on purpose?” 

“Why, no. How could anybody want to do such a 
dreadful thing?” 

“Nobody could—no, not in my own house. But you 
don’t know what a shock it has given me.” 

It was some time before Silva was able to go down¬ 
stairs, and in the interval, what with the giving and 
receiving of consolation and encouragement, the mis¬ 
tress and the pretended servant became fast friends. 
Who could have foreseen that a new and dreadful 
tragedy was to spring—or at least to take its form— 
from the very closeness of their new relations? 


CHAPTER IX 

MORE VANDALISM 

Silva had said that only Julien knew the combination 
which would unlock the secret drawer where she had 
hidden her poignard, but of course the statement was 
not meant to be taken literally since it made no men¬ 
tion of Silva, herself. Nor was it possible any longer 
to ignore her in this connection. Her talk of dreams, of 
illusions, the disordered state of her nerves, introduced 
an incalculable element into her motives and conduct. 
And the more sympathetic Clara became the more 
anxious was she to settle once and for all the question 
of the jeweled hilt, which— notwithstanding the part it 
was supposed to have played in the murder had so 
strangely failed to fall into the hands of the authorities. 
An hysterical subject, given to hallucinations, might 
have dropped it anywhere, or even be hiding it now in 
a place certain eventually to fall under enemy scrutiny. 

That the Red Currant had enemies was only too evi¬ 
dent after what had been found in the bottle of Eau 
149 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


150 

de Rose. It wasn’t only the police that she had to 
fear, and a friend who wished to be a friend indeed 
would have to protect her even from her own blind 
impulses. 

Why Clara had become such a friend she couldn’t 
have said. Partially, no doubt, it was because of that 
very vitriol. Such a dastardly attack indicated that 
Silva, too, might be one of the objects of the unseen 
hatred, which, to Clara, surrounded the whole case as 
with a noxious vapor. Anyway, she didn’t want to see 
her mistress fall a victim to any offensive launched 
in the dark, and as soon as the other members of 
the household were safely accounted for at or near the 
dining-table, she stole back to the scene of the hair¬ 
dressing, determined to give the suite a thorough search 
before any chance discovery should put events entirely 
beyond her control. Leon tine, whatever had been the 
cause of her absence, was now back and helping for 
once in the kitchen. The field for the moment was 
clear. 

Accurate observation soon becomes a habit even with 
the poorest detective, and with Clara it had long since 
risen to the height of a primary instinct. Quite uncon¬ 
sciously, while getting Silva ready for dinner, she had 
noted the exact position of innumerable objects ranging 
from pins to tables and chairs. She could, indeed, 


MORE VANDALISM 151 

have gone through the rooms, turning over everything 
in them, and have left no trace of her work discover¬ 
able even by a microscope. With surprise amounting 
almost to consternation, she was now made aware that 
in the brief interval of her absence some searcher whose 
technic was less perfect had been busy in the suite. 
There could be no manner of doubt about it. Wherever 
she turned her eyes they fell upon some small article 
which had been slightly but appreciably moved. 

“I shall never be certain now,” she sighed, shaking 
her head. “Even if I don’t find it, that won’t be any 
sign that it wasn’t originally here.” 

Yet she pursued her search nevertheless, and did not 
abandon it till assured that the handle of the Misdri- 
corde at least was at that moment nowhere in La 
Gadelle’s private apartment. The important thing now 
was to discover if possible who else had been looking 
for it. 

In the kitchen she found Leontine and La Haquenee 
working together with that air of wordless understand¬ 
ing which inevitably suggests an amorous relation. The 
apache was about to start for the dining-room with the 
desert. Leontine, instead of opening the door promptly 
before him, leaned and kissed him eagerly but silently 
on the mouth. 

Clara retreated silently, and through another door 


152 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

watched the completion of the family dinner. So this 
was the reason why the haughty lady’s maid was will¬ 
ing to do general housework and to leave her own 
proper tasks to others! But where was Peters? It 
was strange that he should absent himself from the 
service of dinner. 

Such conduct was partially explained, however, when 
the family rose from the table. Mrs. Granger, promptly 
taking charge of the clearing away, made it easy to 
understand how intolerable she must make things for 
a methodical and fastidious butler. Only her husband, 
looking more sheepish even than usual, was permitted 
really to help her. Millie and Ferrard, after a few 
half-hearted attempts to interfere, wandered off into 
another part of the house. They invited Silva to 
accompany them, but offered no very determined resist¬ 
ance to her obvious intention of being left behind. 

La Gadelle, evidently, was not yet in perfect control 
of herself, for she walked nervously and aimlessly 
about the dining-room as if looking in vain for some¬ 
thing to distract her thoughts. Taking advantage of a 
moment when she was alone, La Haquenee approached 
her, caught her hand and pressed it to his lips. The 
incident took place near the door behind which Clara 
was standing, and she heard him whisper in French: 


MORE VANDALISM 


i S3 


“Something has happened to disturb you. What 
is it?” 

“Nothing important, I guess,” answered Silva, with 
an amazing lack of resentment. “I’m tired.” 

“All right. But if you won’t take me into your con¬ 
fidence, see that you don’t take anybody else.” 

This scene, though it occupied only a few seconds, 
did not entirely escape notice, for Leontine, entering 
the room just at its close, had eyes blazing with sullen 
resentment; and the glance which she sent after her 
retiring mistress was heavy with hatred. 

La Haquenee, turning towards her, muttered with 
a laugh: 

“You little cat! Don’t you dare to show your claws 
around me.” 

Whereupon the maid’s glance fell, as if a master had 
spoken. 

Clara retired without being seen and after a time 
sought her own room. It was her habit now to make 
no sound unless there was some necessity for avoiding 
the appearance of stealth. Her door was ajar. She 
pushed it cautiously. There stood Peters before her 
dressing-table toying with a wrist watch which she had 
left off wearing because it seemed rather too elegant 
for her present part. 

She had, as has already been noted, long since 


154 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

arrived at the conclusion that the aloof and irreproach¬ 
able butler had an Achilles’ heel—a flaw in his armor. 
Outwardly glacial, he had, she believed, a profound 
inclination for the opposite sex, and she felt certain 
that any woman who cared to stoop to the risks of 
such a game could easily break through his reserve. 

Hitherto she had scorned this means of working out 
a case. But since the disappearance of McClue a sense 
of desperation had been growing within her, making 
her reckless of what she did so long as she succeeded 
finally in sweeping away the web of intrigue in which 
she was caught. Justice had never a more ruthless 
emissary than this little ex-schoolmarm cut off from 
her moorings and compelled to make her way alone. 

Peters’ mood and inclination were not easily to be 
misunderstood. He found himself alone in a woman’s 
room, and the situation, so insignificant in itself, evi¬ 
dently filled him with fancies. His glance roved about, 
as if peopling the empty space with figures which were 
not there. On seeing Clara he seemed to freeze all 
over. 

“Eight forty-five,” he muttered, comparing the 
wrist watch with a clock standing upon the mantel. 
“Seems to be right. And yet you are not down to 
dinner.” 


MORE VANDALISM 


155 


Clara dropped into a chair and let a tantalizing, 
incredulous smile curl the corners of her mouth. 

“And I suppose you came here just for that—to see 
if my clock wasn’t slow!” 

“I knocked,” he explained stiffly, “and you didn’t 
answer. I didn’t know but what you were ill.” 

“That would have ruined your life, eh?” 

“Don’t try to flirt with me,” cried the butler with 
surprising vehemence, turning for the first time directly 
towards her. 

Clara laughed, though she could not quite hide her 
amazement at his violence. 

“Oh!” she brought out, with just a quiver of con¬ 
sternation. “Is that forbidden, then?” 

“I always try to do my duty,” he went on as if to 
himself. “But I’m a dangerous man when provoked. 
Haven’t you seen how I’ve tried to avoid you from the 
first? There are some women I simply cannot endure. 
You are one of them.” 

“So terribly distasteful to you?” she dared to say. 

“No, no. You understand what I mean. I’m giving 
a little treat to the servants tonight. It’s time you 
were coming down.” 

There was something so real in his apparent struggle 
with himself, something so genuine and withal a little 
comic in his endeavor to keep the interview within con- 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


156 

ventional lines, that Clara was half inclined to be sorry 
she had forced him to confession. Could it be true that 
he was one of those men whose conscience is forever at 
war with weakness? Or was this pretense of infatu¬ 
ation, of morbid susceptibility, merely a ruse to hide 
the real object of his visit? 

The servants’ treat, in any case, was no pretense, 
and on permitting Peters to conduct her to the lower 
floor she found Leontine and La Haquenee already 
waiting to do justice to a little feast which would have 
tempted an epicure. 

“I prepared this while the family were being taken 
care of by that impossible Mrs. Granger,” said the 
butler, a little pompously. “There is no need of our 
living like riff-raff just because they do.” 

The meal began stiffly. But as it progressed La 
Haquenee unburdened himself of a repertoire of bois¬ 
terous songs, which he sung in a manner not to be 
despised, and Leontine—her bad humor evaporating— 
became loquacious, even witty. Clara did her best not 
to be conspicuous by her reserve, but was forced to 
wonder whether Peters had not staged the whole per¬ 
formance for the purpose of seeing his associates un¬ 
bend. There was certainly a remarkable oiliness about 
his condescending affability, while his willingness to 


MORE VANDALISM 


157 


open l’Estrange’s best champagne appeared to be 
boundless. But if he expected to harvest a crop of 
indiscretions he was doomed to disappointment. The 
evening broke up without an important word having 
been said. 

Clara had deviated from her usual custom in her 
search of Silva’s apartment, and instead of being care¬ 
ful to leave no traces of her visit she had laid the train 
for a little explosion by wilfully deranging things— 
even going so far as to carry away Silva’s spangled 
dress. The object, of course, was to see if any face 
would betray itself when complaints were made. But 
thus far there had been no complaint, and having made 
certain that her companions had all retired, she was 
left alone to decide whether or not there was any 
further object in keeping awake. 

What chiefly inclined her not yet to call it a day was 
the fact that no ransacking of any apartment can be 
completed in its owner’s absence. Silva might carry 
the hilt upon her person, and now would be a good 
time to find out. The borrowed dress suggested yet 
another idea. Why not wear it? If she were discov¬ 
ered she might be mistaken for her mistress, and there 
were several persons in that house whose attitude when 
they thought themselves alone with the Red Currant 
might be worth study. 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


158 

So she crowded herself as best she could into the 
gown, more than a shade too tight for her, covered 
her tell-tale brown hair with a highly colored wig taken 
from beneath the double bottom of her seemingly so 
innocent little trunk, and sauntered out into the vast¬ 
ness of the slumbering mansion—not having forgotten 
to slip an electric torch and an automatic pistol into an 
open bag which she wore at her belt. 

No house is totally dark in its interior even at night, 
for the rays creeping in at the windows are reflected 
from surface to surface and dispersed into a sort of 
phosphorescence rather than actually lost. But the cor¬ 
ridors were very dim and the mansion, built of age-old 
stone, had about it none of the creaking noises common 
to modern and less well-constructed dwellings. The 
silence, indeed, was like that which must reign in a 
cemetery vault when those who have laid away the last 
of its destined sleepers have gone and sealed the door 
forever behind them—a dreadful silence, which per¬ 
mitted the circulation of the blood about the ears to be 
heard with startling distinctness. Even the soft click¬ 
ing made by the torch and the pistol as they stirred 
together in the bag seemed in that dead and moveless 
air to be magnified until it was like the crashing of 
cymbals. It was necessary to pause and wrap a hand¬ 
kerchief about the torch to preserve the peace. Only 


MORE VANDALISM 


159 

then was her flitting sufficiently ghost-like to be in 
harmony with her surroundings. 

Clara always remembered that night as an occasion 
of premature premonitions. Not but what it was event¬ 
ful enough in its way, but its happenings had little in 
common with the vague dread which was haunting her 
imagination. And when the dreadful did occur it was 
bright day and cheerful, with no forewarning of tragedy 
whatever; while the most dreadful thing of all did not 
happen there but many, many miles away. Life is so 
woven together that we cannot fail sometimes to catch 
glimpses of the future in the design of the present, 
but almost invariably our imaginations distort them 
so that when the prophecy is fulfilled it escapes 
recognition. 

Thus Clara, standing there in the silence, was con¬ 
scious of a half-formed expectancy that it would be 
broken the next instant by some appalling clamor. 
Instead, there came only a faint creaking, hardly 
audible though sufficiently significant. Someone was 
ascending the grand staircase at the head of which she 
had come to a pause. 

Breathlessly she stepped back of a bit of statuary, 
and soon became aware of a dimly visible form stealing 
past. It reached the vicinity of Silva’s suite, then van¬ 
ished as completely as if the walls had opened and 


160 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

swallowed it up. But she knew that the prowler had 
merely passed into the shadows of the deep recess of 
one of the doors. There was the faint grating of metal 
upon metal, as of a key cautiously thrust into a lock, 
followed by the appearance of a rectangle of pale gray 
as the door slowly opened and threw a human figure 
into comparatively sharp relief. She saw now that she 
was trailing a man. But was she on the track of crime 
or merely scandal? 

Not scandal, surely, for the door was left half open, 
and only burglars and their ilk are so careful of the 
way of retreat. 

She dropped to her hands and knees and literally 
crawled over the threshold, knowing that it was darkest 
near the floor and that even the most watchful are 
observant chiefly of what goes on at the level of their 
own eyes. It was a room furnished in white enamel, 
with heavy curtains partially drawn over the windows. 
Nothing stirred, yet it was some moments before she 
could assure herself that the room was actually empty. 

In the room adjoining, to which she cautiously pro¬ 
ceeded, she was met again by the moveless outlines of 
tables and chairs, the pale wraith of herself reflected 
by the mirror before which she had so lately dressed 
her mistress’s hair being the only visible sign of animate 
existence. The door into the corridor was locked. 


MORE VANDALISM 161 

Clearly the unknown had passed into Silva’s bed¬ 
chamber. 

But this room also was empty, save for its lawful 
occupant. A night light was burning, and Silva could 
be clearly seen, fast asleep. Clara drew near the bed, 
stooped and thrust her hand very slowly beneath the 
pillow. People who carry objects about with them for 
safe-keeping are almost certain to put them under their 
pillows at nights. But results were negative, and an 
inspection of the lately discarded garments yielded 
nothing. 

Not until she had made certain of this did Clara 
remember that the bedroom was the last of the 
suite. The creature she had traced there could not 
have gone any farther in this direction, and here, 
too, the door was locked. What could have become of 
him? 

She retraced her steps to the first room she had 
entered. The door—yes, it was now locked as tight 
as the others. She was caught in the suite as in a 
trap, and Silva—as if moved by a tardily penetrating 
sense of strange presences—could be heard stirring. 
The window, then! 

Luckily it was already open, and Clara reached the 
balcony just as Silva switched on all the lights. The 
retreat was now far from safe, and crowding into the 


162 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

shadow cast by one of the half-drawn curtains, Clara 
was forced against the railing. Instinctively she looked 
down. There was a man standing upon the railing of 
one of the balconies on the floor below. 

As she watched, he caught hold of the vines which 
curtained the house front and began to climb, as nimble 
as a monkey, hand over hand. A light wind had risen, 
and the rustle of the trees drowned the complaint of 
the tortured creepers, so that the fellow seemed to have 
no weight and to move without a sound. A sense of 
unreality oppressed her as she saw him gain the level 
of the mansard and disappear into the great atelier 
above. 

Evidently she had no longer to do with the first 
prowler. He had been rather slender, while this one 
was large, stout and clumsy looking, notwithstanding 
his strength. Should she attempt to duplicate his feat 
and follow him, or take hold of the vines and simply 
slide to the ground? Climbing promised better. It 
would not have been so very difficult, either, had it not 
been for the spangled dress which impeded her every 
movement and made her glad enough when she could 
finally reach out and grasp the stone bracket of the 
next balcony above. After that the going was still 
worse, but she found herself before an unfastened 


MORE VANDALISM 163 

window at last and literally tumbled in upon the studio 
floor, painfully aware that for several minutes she 
would be almost helpless from exhaustion. 

Before her, but fortunately at some little distance 
and with his back turned, stood a figure dressed in 
corduroy with a blue flannel shirt of the sort affected 
by workmen and the humbler sort of artists. His hair, 
showing from beneath a soft felt hat, was long and 
unkempt, and when he turned she saw that his beard 
was not only long but covered more than half of his 
face. Still he did not appear to have noticed her, his 
attention being fixed upon the pictures before which he 
soon began to pace, moving back and forth along 
the walls with a wild, unsteady step and muttering 
imprecations. 

Suddenly he drew a knife—no jeweled mis 6 ricorde y 
but a common butcher-knife such as might be snatched 
from any public kitchen. The rays from half a dozen 
unshaded windows left no doubt as to the weapon. 
Had he gone completely mad? Apparently. For hav¬ 
ing paused for an instant before a particularly beauti¬ 
ful figure-study, he fell upon it as if it had been a living 
enemy, and before Clara could fully realize what he 
was about, had reduced the canvas to shreds. 

Such wanton destruction was not to be endured, and 


164 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

as he moved as if to repeat his vandalism upon another 

subject, she cried out: 

“Tiens! No more of that.” 

At the sound of this unexpected interruption, the 
miserable turned, only to find himself blinded by 
the flash of a pocket torch. 

“Diable! Who are you?” he demanded in very good 
French. 

“Never mind who I am,” responded Clara in the 
same tongue. “Drop that knife. Are you such a 
coward that you have to vent your spite upon helpless 
pictures?” 

“Perhaps,” answered the other, making no effort to 
hide his face but still retaining hold of the knife. “I 
don’t care what I am. I don’t care for anything, do 
you understand?” 

“I don’t. But I can see that you are drunk.” 

“Think so if you like, but stop blinding me with that 
light. I don’t want to see who you are, I only want to 
finish what I came here for. If you try to stop 
me-” 

“Indeed, you shan’t!” Clara stepped forward with 
her automatic leveled. “Drop that knife or I’ll have 
to break your arm with a bullet. I am going to fire, do 
you hear? And I never miss, I assure you. I-” 

She choked without achieving her sentence. A 




MORE VANDALISM 165 

handkerchief had been drawn over her mouth. Arms 
pinioned her from behind. And while she struggled, 
helpless in the clutches of this new and unforeseen 
assailant, the picture-destroyer dashed out through a 
window, leaving her staring up into a pair of mocking 
eyes that looked down over her shoulder. 

“Cent pipes de diables! If it isn’t the domestique,” 
exclaimed a voice in the accents of Montmartre as she 
felt herself released. 

“La Haquenee! ” countered Clara, turning her flash. 
“Do you know what you have done, or did you do it 
on purpose ?” 

“That’s a good one! I catch the bonne a tout faire 
with a pocket flash and a gun in the patron’s studio 
at two o’clock in the morning, and she asks me what 
I’ve done. What have you been doing, Miss Clara 
Whatsyername?” 

“There was a man here,” Clara responded, recover¬ 
ing her ordinary tone. “He started to cut the paintings 
to pieces, and you have let him get away.” 

“Un gaffe , alors. My mistake and your treat.” 

He walked over to the ruined canvas, and by the 
help of the cone of light which Clara threw after him, 
examined it attentively. 

“This is a rum go,” he muttered. “But why did 


166 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

you butt in on it? Are you a night watchman, or just 

a flic’s moll?” 

“I’m a housemaid who doesn’t like to see things 
destroyed by a lunatic.” 

“Yes, you are!” 

“And you throttled me,” she persisted. “If it wasn’t 
to help a pal escape, what then? Did you think I was 
somebody else?” 

“Mein?” 

“That’s it. I’m wearing a borrowed dress and a 
wig. You thought I was Silva Jonquille—with M’sieu 
Ferrard. No wonder you were furious.” 

Haquenee took a step forward, and halted only at 
a warning gesture from the pistol. 

“What put that into your bean?” 

“Just a notion. You must have jumped to very 
distasteful conclusions.” 

“Coquine! A little more of that, and I’ll finish 
with you.” 

“I hardly think so.” 

“On account of your little plaything? Poof!” 

As he spoke his foot shot out, sending Clara’s auto¬ 
matic into a corner. She jumped back, and by the 
time he had regained his poise stood covering him with 
a second weapon which she had snatched from the 
bosom of her dress. 


MORE VANDALISM 167 

With an exaggerated bow, La Haquenee waved her 
to a camp stool and drew up another for himself. 

“A professional flic and no mistake,” he chuckled. 
“I only wanted to make sure. Look here, are you 
from the botte?” 

“The what?” 

“Are you a regular, or just trying to get somebody 
to sing a little song of your own?” 

“Sing?” 

“Yes, through the nose —le chantage, blackmail— 
use what word you like.” 

“But whom could I be trying to make sing in a 
house like this?” 

“That’s what I’m going to find out.” 

“Really, Haquenee, it isn’t the one you are inter¬ 
ested in. 

“How do you know who I’m interested in?” 

“I’ve watched you. And it isn’t Leontine, as you 
pretend and as it naturally might be expected to be. 
It’s Silva Jonquille.” 

“Well?” 

“Simply this. I want to be her friend, too.” 

“Prove it, little one.” 

“How?” 

“By telling what you know and what you’re here 
for, posing as a servant.” 


i68 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


“And if I do?” 

“If it sounds right, I’ll keep my mouth shut about 
tonight. That’s something, ain’t it?” 

“Why, yes; I don’t want to lose my place.” 

“Very well; if I find I like your game, you can go 
on with it. Chacun pent piger son rat , that’s my motto. 
Live and let live.” 

“And on my side, I suppose, I’m to say nothing 
about your ability to use your feet—so remarkably 
like an apache?” 

“Bah! I’m no longer in the actif. Do as you like. 
Anybody’s welcome to that little histoire. Shoot your 
piece.” 

“It’s a bargain,” said Clara after a moment’s reflec¬ 
tion. “Keep still about tonight and so will I.” 

“Not enough. Jaspinez a bit about what’s under 
your top-knot.” 

“There isn’t much—yet. But I can tell you one 
thing. This afternoon, and again tonight, somebody 
was searching her room for the-” 

“Chut! How do we know there ain’t an ear at the 
keyhole? This isn’t the place to give names to things, 
since you know so much. This afternoon, you say?” 

“And tonight.” 

“No matter about tonight. That was me. And you, 
I gather, are the little mouse that I locked in?” 


MORE VANDALISM 


169 

“But how did you manage it?” 

“Easy enough. Heard I was followed, took all the 
keys, crawled past you in the dark and went out by the 
window—just as you did.” 

“Then Silva must be locked in now. She’ll raise an 
alarm.” 

“No, I stopped and explained things to her just now 
as I was climbing up. She was on the balcony.” 

“You told her you thought it was I?” 

“Not a bit of it. Had no idea it was you then.” 

“Whom did you think it was?” 

“Not so fast, p’tite. There’s got to be more lime on 
the twig—enough to hold us both. Tell me what you’re 
up to.” 

In obedience to a sudden resolution, Clara hurried 
back to her room and returned with her credentials. 

“I’m working for McClue,” she explained, as she 
thrust them into his hands, “and he is after big game- 
big game only. I think he mentioned you to me once.” 

“Never heard of him,” snapped the apache, running 
his eyes over the papers which he could only half 
understand. “But if these are genuine, you’re a fool 
to pack ’em around.” 

“I don’t think so. If one is suspected the game is up 
, and it is often well to have your true identity 


anyway. 


170 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

within reach. As to Mr. McClue, he calls himself 
Lepadou over here.” 

“Lepadou! I remember. He ran me in at the time 
of the Boncceur affair, but treated me like a gentleman 
afterwards. Big game —the big game . Yes, that was 
his lay.” 

“Then,” said Clara, “in so far as this is an affair 
between the Red Currant and an artists’ model it isn’t 
to my interest to interfere. But if you tell Silva who 
I am-” 

“Not likely. She’d run away at once with a yellow 
dog.” 

“Ferrard?” 

“You’re good at names, Miss.” 

“Then let me stay. He may be something in my 
line.” 

“Little one, I shan’t interfere with you at all. Is 
there anything else I can do besides playing Vaveugle?” 

His whole manner had changed, and an amiable grin 
broadened across his face. 

“You don’t seem to like yellow dogs,” remarked 
Clara, regarding him. 

“Right.” 

“Because they sometimes follow big game?” 

“Oh, I’m not bothering about your big game. All 
I want is to keep the flat-feet off the currant bush.” 



MORE VANDALISM 171 

“You mean that my being here makes the police 
think that they're already sufficiently represented?" 

“You get me like a shot. A common agent en hour - 
geois would go for the bush. Lepadou bothers only 
with trees." 

“But you admit that there may be a tree?" 

“I don’t know anything about that, lady. Since 
you’re here, it looks like it. But Silva is only a little 
red currant. If I help you, will you promise to help 
her, even if-’’ 

“Well?" 

“Look here. As you say, it’s nothing to. Lepadou 
if one woman wants to score off of another." 

“Are you sure she scored, Haquenee?" 

“No; but if you thought she did?" 

“In that case I’d think I’d made a mistake in com¬ 
ing, and should go away." 

“Just so—and leave her to the flatties." 

“Not even that. I’ll tip you off if I find them grow¬ 
ing warm. Should you see me brushing my hair with 
two fingers-’’ 

“Good! It will mean that the Red Currant is in 
danger." 

“Yes—or that you are." 

“Par exemple! I didn’t do this job and can take 


l 



172 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


care of myself. But it’s understood. You’re a zig 
Shall we adjourn?” 

“Tell me first who it was that you just let escape.” 

“I didn’t really see him, p’tite. Had Ferrard on my 
mind. How’d he look?” 

Clara described the vandal’s appearance as best she 
' could. Haquenee remained silent for several minutes. 

“I think I know him,” he brought out finally. “A 
queer dick, and I’ve thought for some time that he 
was up to something. But I don’t get his slashing the 
picture.” 

“Never mind that. What’s his name?” 

“Flamand Bee. He hangs around the quartier drink¬ 
ing absinthe. It goes to his head sometimes and makes 
him fight like a gorilla. That’s all I’ve got to say 
now—and pas des tromps. Try to double-cross me 
and—good-bye casserole l” 

The apache accompanied the threat with a suggestive 
pass of his hand across Clara’s throat, and was gone. 


CHAPTER X 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 

After what had been discovered in the bottle of 
Eau de Rose, Clara was not surprised to find herself 
installed as Silva’s regular maid. 

“I know it was merely carelessness, if she was 
responsible at all,” the mistress went to the trouble 
to explain. “But one can’t take chances with vitriol, 
and it makes me uneasy now to have Leontine near 
me.” 

Clara pretended to take the explanation at its face 
value, giving no hint that she knew of any reason why 
her predecessor in office should be suspected of inten¬ 
tionally misfilling the bottle. Yet Silva must have 
observed how Leontine followed La Haquenee about, 
just as she must be aware of the apache’s unservant¬ 
like feeling for herself. There was evidence, indeed, 
that day by day, with Ferrard drifting further and 
further in Millie Granger’s direction, the apache’s de¬ 
votion—so to call it—was becoming more bold and less 
at pains to hide itself. 


173 


174 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

But the Red Currant, instead of allowing any of 
these circumstances to disturb her, appeared to be 
growing calmer. She spent much time in the motherly 
company of Mrs. Granger, and was either acquiring 
increased powers of self-control or actually finding 
something very like happiness in her new surroundings. 
Whether this, if it was genuine at all, came from grow¬ 
ing slowly reconciled to the threatened loss of the last 
shreds of her influence over Julien, or from unselfish 
satisfaction in the continued absence of any hue and 
cry against him, it was impossible to say. Apart from 
her sudden preference for Clara, she gave no sign of 
having especial need either for forgetfulness or 
courage. 

Leontine was even a greater enigma. Her calm 
acceptance of a change which turned her from a privi¬ 
leged companion into a maid of general housework 
might be accounted for by the fact that she was now 
freer to consort with La Haquenee. But there were 
details of her conduct not so easily explained. For one 
thing, she was frequently missing altogether. 

These absences were cleverly timed, and cloaked by 
all sorts of expedients; but it was nevertheless evident 
that her interests were no longer entirely confined to 
the house. 

Clara had been looking for just this sort of evidence 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 


175 


that the big mystery which had brought her to Europe 
was involved with the lesser one she had set herself 
officially to investigate. Heretofore, nobody beneath 
that roof had fit conclusively into what she felt to be a 
missing role. Leontine, however, from the moment 
that her time was not fully to be accounted for, could 
be cast with some confidence as a possible go-between. 
Here at last were palpable, physical means whereby 
The Squid might have a living feeler within the 
mansion. 

It was therefore with more than casual interest that 
Clara, one evening just after dinner, caught sight of 
her new suspect standing bareheaded by the front gate 
and looking out through its bars with a display of 
languid indifference towards the thin stream of passers- 
by too exaggerated not to be assumed. To judge by 
superficial appearances, no thought was further from 
her mind than that of leaving the courtyard. The next 
instant, having cast a furtive look over her shoulder, 
she opened the gate a few inches and darted out of 
sight. 

Clara lost no time in taking up the pursuit, and soon 
had a glimpse of her quarry crossing the boulevard 
more than half a block away—and now wearing a tiny 
turban which she must have had concealed about her 
from the start. 


176 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

From this point on Leontine proceeded slowly, paus¬ 
ing at every corner to look back. But Clara was a 
good limnier, and was always behind a tree or hidden 
by the glare of a street lamp whenever the critical 
moment arrived. Few people realize the effectiveness 
of street-lamps as cover, or how little those regu¬ 
larly spaced zones of illumination in the pedestrian’s 
wake can be trusted to conceal nothing behind 
them. 

At Place St. Germain, Leontine faced about and 
began retracing her steps, an ancient trick the very 
simplicity of which has disconcerted many a careless 
trailer. But Clara had noted every possible nook of 
concealment on the way, and was able to dart behind 
one of those cylindrical billboards so common in Paris 
streets and to keep on the farther side of it until the 
risk of immediate discovery was passed. 

This time the quarry turned off into the Rue St. 
Andre d’Arts, then doubled back in her original direc¬ 
tion, which was towards the Boulevard St. Michel. It 
was now possible to hazard a guess as to her destina¬ 
tion. She was going to the police. 

Leontine, take care! For you the police may be 
more dangerous than all the Squids in the world. It 
would be safer to kill Silva Jonquille with your own 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 177 

hands than to betray her to the authorities, if that’s 
what your plan is. Have you forgotten what the 
apaches do to traitors? 

With thoughts like these passing through her mind, 
Clara abandoned the direct chase altogether, ran 
through the Rue Grands Augustins and turned to the 
right at Pont Neuf. In due season Leontine re¬ 
appeared, passing beneath arc light of the St. Michel 
quarter, and was lost to sight among the shadows of 
the Quai d’Orfevres. Nobody needs to be very familiar 
with Paris to know that the Quai d’Orfevres gives upon 
the headquarters of the Police Judiciare . She was 
going to visit Chief Balai. 

Clara sat down on a wayside banc —one of those 
straight-backed, double-faced benches which add so 
much to that fictitious air of leisure which the French 
capital continually displays in spite of all its rush and 
turmoil. It was humiliating to think that Balai had 
made a fool of her and had had another agent on the 
ground perhaps from the very first. What would Judge 
Tardieu, with his anxiety to ward off ill-considered 
action, say to this? 

It might be a good idea to find out. Here was the 
Palais de Justice almost in front of her, with a single 
lighted window high up in its stately fagade. The 


178 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

judge had told her where to find him, and that he often 
worked in the evening. It was more than possible that 
the light was his. 

The crowds which throng this home of the criminal 
courts during the day, giving it an air of mock and 
terrible gayety, were long since gone, the great stair¬ 
way beyond the ornate Napoleonic grill-work com¬ 
pletely deserted. Yet one of the gates was ajar, and 
she was soon standing before a bored-looking huissier, 
the sole being on guard. He received her without even 
looking up from his seat, announcing in the midst of 
peaceful puffs from his pipe that her idea of getting an 
audience with any one of the judiciary at such an hour 
was preposterous. 

“If you’d take my card in instead of sitting there and 
staring at it,” cried Clara impatiently, “you’d soon see 
that it’s you who are preposterous.” 

The huissier started. Officers of the court are not 
accustomed to be addressed in this fashion—not in 
Europe—and he was prepared to assert his dignity. 
But, observing that the person with whom he had to 
deal was obviously none of those pathetic relatives who 
were always bothering him for news of some defendant 
or other, he exchanged his frown for an insinuating 
grin. 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 179 

“If m’sieu le juge d’instruction was only expecting 
you, now-” 

‘‘He’ll be expecting me as soon as you let him know 
I am here,” Clara cut him short. “Don’t tell me he 
has gone home, either, for I saw a light in his window.” 

“Pardon! If mamzelle is his friend, if she knows 
his window-” 

Clara stamped her foot in vexation at this unexpected 
result of her lucky guess. But the official had departed 
on his errand, returning shortly with the tinge of mock¬ 
ery more in evidence in his manner than ever. 

“M’sieu le juge se trouve tres occupy, mais -” 

“But he’ll see me nevertheless.” 

“Exactly what I was going to remark.” 

“Then be good enough to lead the way. I’m only 
familiar with this place from hearsay.” 

“There’s lots that would like to say as much,” the 
huissier suggested. “And now if you’ll give yourself 
the trouble to follow me-” 

He mounted several flights of stairs, threaded long 
and intricate passages and finally opened a door into 
a large, square and singularly cheerless cubicle where 
sat the judge behind a desk upon a small raised plat¬ 
form. 

“That man was impertinent enough when he began ’ 9 


i8o THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

said Clara, taking the chair reserved for accused per¬ 
sons as the huissier withdrew. “And after he had seen 
you he was worse” 

“Which proves that you’re not the only one with 
finesse,” smiled Tardieu. 

“What do you mean?” 

“That it seemed best to let him go on thinking that 
your visit wasn’t official.” 

“Oh! Then you are subtile—and quite right. Per¬ 
haps I oughtn’t to have come.” 

But, relieved at being able at last to share her re¬ 
sponsibilities, Clara went on to explain the object of 
her visit, telling how she had followed Leontine to the 
quai, of the vitriol, of Julien’s attentions to Millie and 
of the change that had of late come over Silva Jonquille. 
She related, too, what she had seen in the studio, in the 
garden; and how La Haquenee continued to follow his 
mistress about with his eyes, but less and less like a 
faithful dog and more and more like a hunter. 

“She’s losing her ascendency over him,” muttered 
the judge. “I didn’t know what to think of his being 
there when you first wrote me about it, but her state¬ 
ment to Julien makes it only too plain. And now 
the maid is jealous—which perhaps accounts for the 
vitriol. You’ll have to watch over Silva carefully, Miss 
Hope.” 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 181 

“I think I can protect her, ni’sieu le juge —from 
everybody, that is, but herself.” 

“Why do you put it like that?” 

“Because she talks so strangely sometimes.” 

“You suspect her?” 

“No, but I could never explain her—to Balai, for 
instance.” 

“Let’s hope you won’t have to. And now about the 
pictures. Ferrard may have been telling the truth 
when he said he was looking for technical secrets, but 
that doesn’t account for this man, Bee. The length to 
which art feuds are sometimes carried in Paris passes 
belief. It may be something of that sort. But I wish 
I had known. I’d have told l’Estrange about it.” 

“What, you’ve seen him?” 

“Yes, he stopped to have a word with me the other 
evening. He was on his way to England, where he 
has been suddenly called on some business connected 
with the Tait gallery.” 

“The other evening —what evening?” demanded 
Clara with signs of growing excitement. 

. “It was last Tuesday.” 

“Are you sure? At what time?” 

“About nine o’clock. But-” 

“Can’t you fix it more exactly?” 

“Why, yes. He arrived at about eight forty-five, 


182 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

and having to catch a train left on the stroke of the 

hour.” 

Clara sighed and sank back into her seat. 

“There goes one possibility up in smoke. Peters, 
the butler, was with me at the stroke of nine, and for 
fully fifteen minutes before.” 

“Peters?” Tardieu regarded his protege for a 
moment in mute astonishment. “I see. You began 
by simply thinking that he might not be Peters, and 
ended by—but did you make sure that your watch 
was right?” 

“Yes, I compared it with several clocks in the house 
that night, and with the chronometer in a horlogerie 
the next morning. I’m 9:15 now. What are you?” 

“It’s no use, Miss Hope,” said the judge with a 
smile, taking out his watch. “I’ve one of those pro¬ 
voking timepieces which never gives me an excuse 
either to be late at an appointment or to pretend that 
the other party is. Just 9:15, as you can see for 
yourself. But you make me half afraid of you.” 

“Why? I’d never seen l’Estrange and Peters to¬ 
gether. How could I know they weren’t the same 
man?” 

“You couldn’t. But if you’re going to insist on 
certainties, how do you know that anybody is not The 
Squid?” 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 183 

There was something so comically innocent about 
the question that Clara burst into laughter. But once 
in the street again she grew thoughtful. What a 
horrible world it was. She couldn’t be certain, in 
fact. 

The next morning the world seemed determined to 
shake off this incubus of general suspicion. To begin 
with, it was one of those wonderful spring days, 
bright and warm, which make it appear as if the 
season had advanced a full month over night. In that 
sparkling sunshine, doubts shrank to more normal pro¬ 
portions. 

And shortly before noon, who should call but the 
Duchess of Fayves. Peters himself let her in. Clara 
overheard the two exchange a few words of greeting. 
Her ladyship called him by name. 

“Here’s another of my guns spiked,” laughed Clara 
under her breath. “They are old acquaintances, so 
Peters must be just Peters after all. And I’m dis¬ 
appointed. This business makes one a beast.” 

In the afternoon there rose again the question of 
Leontine’s whereabouts. 

“I don’t know what to make of that girl,” said Peters 
anxiously, meeting Clara in one of the halls. “She’s 
always prowling around the house and never anywhere 


184 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

when wanted. It’s a queer house, too, since M’sieu 
l’Estrange is no longer here.” 

"Queer?” 

“Maybe that’s too strong a word. But I don’t know 
anything about our employers, really. Supposing 
something should go wrong.” 

“Wrong?” Once more she repeated his word, sur¬ 
prised at this new point of view. 

The butler continued: 

“A theft, for instance. I’m only warning you not 
to imitate a bad example. A servant can’t be too care¬ 
ful to avoid suspicious conduct, especially when work¬ 
ing for people of a doubtful character.” 

Clara made an excuse to get away, for she began to 
have an idea that Peters was merely taking advantage 
of an opportunity to make up to her, and she did not 
feel in the mood to endure him. Opposite Leontine’s 
door she paused. The door was closed, locked, the key 
on the inside. She knocked. There was no response. 
Leontine, then, seemed not be absent but hiding. 
Hiding from what? 

Returning to the lower part of the house, she found 
La Haquenee sprawled upon one of the seats in the 
entry, sleeping—a sleep almost too profound to be 
real. 

Clara went out into the garden. Not even sunshine 



T HE FATE OF AN INFORMER 185 

could make the interior of the l’Estrange mansion long 
seem wholesome and reassuring. The garden was 
cheerful with the chirping of sparrows. This was more 
as it should be. Nature, at least, was open and above 
board. But she had no sooner reached the gate than 
she stopped with an exclamation of startled indigna¬ 
tion. There, just outside and hidden from the house 
by the massive stone gate-post, stood the huissier. 

Could it be possible that he had the audacity to 
pursue her? But no. Someone must have given him 
her address, and that could only have been Tardieu. 
There was something serious behind this visit. 

“I was waiting for a chance to get a glimpse of you,” 
he said as she again approached him. “The judge 
wants to see you. Do you think you can get away?” 

“I’m already away,” she answered, stepping through 
the gate. 

“Well, then, the judge is waiting on a banc along the 
Boulevard St. Michel just opposite the Cafe de la 
Source.” 

“On a bench along the boulevard—Judge Tardieu?” 

“Yes, Miss,” the huissier grinned. “His Honor 
thought you might not like to come to the bureau 
again. But I know he’s in a hurry. I wouldn’t keep 
him waiting if I was you.” 

Wearing a servant’s apron, her social inconsequence 


i86 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

now revealed, it was impossible to preserve even a 
shred of dignity in the eyes of this incorrigible mes¬ 
senger. But Clara was too impressed with the impor¬ 
tance of his message to care very much about anything 
else. And promising to lose no time, she started 
away—after snatching off her cap and wrapping it into 
a neat bundle with her apron. 

The judge was on the spot indicated. 

“Have you seen the newspapers?” he demanded, 
hardly waiting for her to sit down. 

“I saw Le Matin”' 

“It wasn’t in Le Matin. You should have read Le 
Figaro” 

“What would I have found there? No bad news, 
I hope?” 

“A notice to the effect that l’Estrange’s ‘The Struggle 
of Innocence’ has been withdrawn from public view 
sooner than was expected in order to enable its pur¬ 
chaser to ship it at once to America.” 

Clara looked blank. 

“Even if it’s true-” 

“It isn’t true, Miss Hope. The notice is part of the 
usual silly police moves to keep a scandal secret until 
it explodes.” 

“What is true, then?” 



THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 187 

“The picture is missing.” 

“Stolen?” 

“Presumably so. It disappeared sometime between 
the closing of the gallery last night and the opening 
hour this morning. I'm beginning to think you’re right 
about l’Estrange being the real object of attack in all 
this.” 

“There’s certainly an attack being made on his pic¬ 
tures,” said Clara after reflection. 

“More than his pictures this time,” declared the 
judge. “Don’t you see? Silva Jonquille is his weak 
point—as she is perhaps mine.” 

“You think l’Estrange is in love with her?” 

“He’s very much interested, anyway. And if he has 
made an enemy-” 

“Of whom?” 

“I haven’t the least idea. But let us assume that 
it’s somebody with considerable power and influence. 
The supposition is not difficult of a man who is both 
fearless and energetic. What more natural, then, than 
an attempt to reach him through Silva?” 

Clara, remembering what she had already been made 
to suffer through the disappearance of McClue, was 
unable to repress a shiver. None knew better than 
she the terrible power of human malignancy when once 
the heart has provided it with hostages. But she 


188 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

couldn’t exactly see how the disappearance of The 
Struggle of Innocence’ brought La Gadelle into 
jeopardy. 

“I’ll show you, then,” said Tardieu when she had 
explained her difficulty. “Let us suppose that every¬ 
thing which has happened to the pictures is a blind— 
this last incident will nevertheless make a great noise. 
Balai, if he isn’t already more than willing, will be 
almost forced into making an investigation. And if 
the least hint gets out of any injury having befallen the 
pictures in the house-” 

“I see,” interrupted Clara. “Balai can then advance 
under cover of an apparently friendly purpose. But 
no hint shall get out if I can help it. I’ve already hid¬ 
den that one canvas that was ruined. It’s between the 
mattresses of my own bed, and I don’t think that any¬ 
body but La Haquenee knows about it. Have you 
tried to locate Bee?” 

“Yes, he was seen today in his usual haunts and will 
be watched from now on.” 

“But you don’t know what he was doing last night?” 

“Unfortunately, no. We didn’t pick up his trail in 
time. But what I’m afraid of is that l’Estrange will 
hear of what has happened and come blundering into 
the thick of things.” 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 189 

“Still, if there is nothing out of the way to be found 
in his house-” 

“How do we know what is to be found there—now? 
Silva is already implicated through what we know of 
her misericorde. And what has become of its jeweled 
handle? It seems to me that nothing would be easier 
than to make it appear that l’Estrange had opened his 
place to a gang of murderers, and to arrest one or more 
of them on the premises.” 

Clara was forced to admit such a possibility, but 
went no further than that. Her mind kept reverting as 
usual to The Squid, and for once this very nightmare 
stood in the way of her fears. For how could The 
Squid have to do with a man like FEstrange, or indeed 
with any man at all. The Squid’s victims were invari¬ 
ably women. 

She started back towards the St. Germain quarter, 
therefore, less apprehensive of an imminent crisis than 
was Judge Tardieu, whom she left silently brooding on 
his banc . The greater was her surprise when, on 
nearing her destination, she found the boulevard 
nearly blocked by a crowd of that unmistakable sort 
which collects about the scenes of accidents and other 
calamities. 

“Hey, where are you going?” demanded a police- 



igo THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

man as she tried to pass through the 1 ’Estrange gate¬ 
way. 

“But I belong to the house.” 

“All right then, go ahead—you’ll find it easier to get 
in than to get out.” 

“What has happened?” she demanded, having 
reached the front steps where lolled La Haquenee in 
an attitude of perfect indifference and repose. 

“Perquisition from the boite,” he answered, care¬ 
lessly lighting a cigarette. 

“The chief of police with a search warrant, you 
mean?” 

“Don’t know anything about any warrant. He asked 
if he could come in and look at the pictures, so maybe 
it’s only a social call.” 

“Haquenee, that’s only a pretense. He’s after—you 
know what.” 

“Bien probable. And if he finds it there it won’t 
do no great harm to my feelings.” 

“He may find it somewhere else.” 

“What? Isn’t this your picinc? Don’t you know 
where it is?” 

“It’s certainly not my picnic, and I haven’t the least 
idea in the world.” 

“That’s different again.” The apache’s eyes nar- 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 191 

owed. “I begin to smell a rat—and not for the first 
ime.” 

“Have you seen Leontine?” Clara suddenly thought 
:o ask. 

“Leontine? Oh, she’s out again, I believe.” 

“Maybe it is just as well for her that you do believe 
it,” Clara reflected. Indeed the words were on the tip 
of her tongue. But she went on into the house without 
suffering one of them to fall. 

Her first move was to assure herself that Leontine 
was still in her room. There seemed to be no doubt 
about it, as the door was as before, the key on the in¬ 
side of the lock. Then she hurried towards the studio, 
near the entrance to which she caught sight of Millie 
Granger crouching on the floor, her ear against a panel 
and tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“They won’t let me in!” cried the girl, starting up. 
“Can’t you do something? They are torturing him 
with ridiculous questions. I want to be with him. 
What does it all mean? Nobody has any right to keep 
me out.” 

That awe of officialdom which centuries of strong 
government has stamped upon nearly every soul in 
Europe was singularly lacking in Millie, yet her fresh 
young face had become pathetically older and care- 


192 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

worn. Clara, forgetting for a moment her role, gath¬ 
ered her frankly into her arms. 

“I don’t know what it means, girlie. They have 
come to take an inventory, I hear. Try not to worry 
and maybe they’ll soon be gone.” 

“But they’re not talking about the pictures any 
more,” Millie insisted. “It’s about a fancy knife 
handle, and about that girl who was stabbed at the 
bat des Tapettes . What can Julien possibly know of 
such things?” 

Clara shook her head. Could it be that Balai had 
stumbled upon that dreadfully clear case against Fer- 
rard with which she could so easily have furnished 
him—the case she had mistrusted because of its sheer 
completeness? It didn’t seem likely. La Haquenee, 
who doubtless was in a position to have discovered—or 
even to invent—a number of damning facts, would be 
the last man to seek revenge through the police. Fer- 
rard, himself, couldn’t have been such a fool as to talk. 
And Leontine was eager only to ruin Silva. Balai, then, 
had no information and was probably indulging merely 
in a little third degree work, hoping to find some excuse 
for extending his investigations. 

“If there’s anybody in danger,” Clara said aloud, 
“it can’t be Mr. Ferrard.” 

And the next instant, as if on purpose to contradict 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 


193 

her, the door opened and out came a uniformed officer 
with Julien walking beside him—handcuffed. 

Millie gave a shrill cry and threw herself upon her 
lover as though to tear him away from his captor by 
force. Clara, scarcely less surprised, slipped forward 
in time to intercept the chief and to motion him back 
into the studio. 

“Please wait just a minute,” she begged, shutting 
the door behind her. “Can’t you countermand your 
orders and listen to my report before taking any 
further steps?” 

“They won’t leave the house till I do,” was Balai’s 
dry rejoinder. “But is it possible that you think of 
making a report?—of taking me into your confidence? 
I’m not Judge Tardieu, you know.” 

“Confidence?” cried Clara, sitting down and waiting 
till the other had followed her example. “You talk 
of confidence, after hiring the first jealous lady’s maid 
that comes along to take my place and practically 
supersede me in the case?” 

“I’m glad you’ve discovered something, Miss Hope. 
I had to have some means of finding out what was 
going on, and this jealous lady’s maid, as you call her, 
didn’t come to me until after it was clear that I’d never 
learn anything from you.” 

“Yet she did come?” 


i 9 4 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“There’s no particular need to deny it, since you 
know.” 

“Then why don’t you follow up her tip?” 

“Which was?” 

“Which was—if it was anything—to search Miss 
Jonquille’s room for the missing dagger-hilt.” 

“Pardon me, I’ve received no such tip. Leon tine has 
been less brilliant than you seem to imagine. She has, 
she tells me, been looking for the hilt but without being 
able to find it.” 

“I don’t understand, then, what you came for. 
Surely it wasn’t to look at some pictures.” 

“Your insight does you credit,” responded Balai with 
heavy sarcasm. “I came, if you must know, to look 
for the hilt where I was told I should find it—here in 
the studio.” 

“Leontine told you to look in the studio? Why, this 
is Julien’s workshop now, and she is the last one who 
would want to get him out of the way. There’s an 
apache-” 

“Yes, I recognized La Haquenee as I came in. What 
about him?” 

“Leontine regards herself as his personal prop¬ 
erty.” 

“Does he object to that?” 

“No, but he is infatuated with Silva, and Leontine 



THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 


195 


is furious. Why should she want to remove Ferrard, 
the very one who stands between La Haquenee and 
her mistress ?” 

“Perhaps she doesn’t,” said the chief, growing more 
thoughtful. “I don’t mind saying that it was not Leon- 
tine who told me to come here at all.” 

“Who was it, then?” 

“That’s more than X know. I received an anony¬ 
mous letter, and the theft of ‘The Struggle of Inno¬ 
cence’ offered such a good excuse that I couldn’t resist 
the temptation to make the most of it. A fishing 
excursion, you might call it.” 

“There’s some mistake, some mystery in all this, 
m’sieu le chej. Overlook my reporting to Judge Tar- 
dieu, and I’ll overlook your going behind my back. 
Surely, when we’ve sifted things to the bottom, you’ll 
see that you’ve gone totally beyond the evidence in 
arresting Ferrard.” 

For answer the chief began to unwrap a small parcel 
which he held in his hand, revealing a large crimson 
paint tube, one end torn off so as to expose a slender 
object studded with jewels. 

“The handle of the weapon used to stab Rougette 
Picot!” Clara gasped. 

“As you say—the handle. While you and the judge 
were having your little conferences, Ferrard seems to 



196 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

have been preparing to smuggle this bit of bric-a-brac 
out of the country with his art materials.” 

“Impossible! He would have thrown it away, in the 
Seine, for example.” 

“Bah! It was too valuable, Miss Hope. A mur¬ 
derer is always a fool.” 

“But he may not be a murderer. This may be a 
plant.” 

“Possibly. Let him prove it at the assizes.” 

Plainly it would be useless to try to stay Balai’s 
hand any longer, now that he had such a conclusive 
piece of evidence to justify him. And Clara couldn’t 
blame him, or even be certain that he was wrong— 
dufficult as it was not to view such apparent folly as 
Julien’s with ever increasing doubt. 

“Since you’re determined,” she said, getting reluc¬ 
tantly to her feet, “there’s nothing left for me to do 
but to wash my hands of the whole matter—and go and 
tell Leontine that the danger is over.” 

“Leontine? What danger?” 

“She’s been hiding in her room, for fear that you 
were coming here on her information, I suppose.” 

“Yes, I did let her think I might do that, though as 
a matter of fact I had no idea of attacking La Gadelle— 
especially with nothing definite to go on. But hiding, 
you say?” 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 197 

“The wicked flee when no man pursueth,” laughed 
Clara, mirthlessly. “She didn’t know where the light¬ 
ning was going to strike. But since it’s only Ferrard 
who suffers, she won’t be blamed—in the one quarter 
she fears.” 

“The apache, you mean? Don’t be too sure of that,” 
said the chief, also rising. “If he suspects her he won’t 
waste time in reasoning about results.” 

“Perhaps you’d better take her with you, then.” 

“I think I shall—under pretended arrest. No apache 
would ever forgive his moll for giving information to 
the police, no matter where the lightning struck. Lock¬ 
ing herself in her room isn’t enough. He might get in 
by some hook or crook, and then-!” 

The two, repressing any further expression of the 
uneasiness which was creeping over them, made their 
way to the maid’s quarters. The door was as before, 
firmly fastened, the interior mute to all demands for 
admittance. 

“Leontine!” Clara called. “Leontine! Here is the 
chef de police. He wants to speak to you.” 

Silence. 

“She probably isn’t there,” suggested Balai. “She 
has fastened her door and gone out.” 

Clara pointed to the lock, obstructed by the key 
within, and stooping down manipulated a hairpin until 


198 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

a metallic clash indicated that the key had been dis¬ 
lodged. 

“That ought to have wakened her if she was asleep, 
m’sieu le chef. But there isn’t a stir and I can see 
nothing. We’ll have to break in.” 

“No need.” 

Balai produced a slender steel instrument with ad¬ 
justable prongs, which Clara snatched from his hands, 
inserted in the keyhole and began to turn about with 
all the skill of a professional burglar. The old- 
fashioned mechanism offered few difficulties, and in a 
second or so the door swung open. 

“Let me go in first,” said the chief. “We don’t know 
what we are going to find. Something may have hap¬ 
pened, and—that is, of course, if she hasn’t gone out 
by the window.” 

But Clara kept ahead, merely remarking that she’d 
been compelled in her time to look at worse sights than 
dead traitors. There were no signs of any disturbance, 
nothing on the floor, nothing on the- 

She darted towards the bed, half hidden behind its 
curtains in an alcove. The bed showed only a carefully 
spread counterpane. 

“The room is empty!” exclaimed the chief, after 
several minutes of close investigation. “And yet—look 
here. Both the windows are locked.” 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 199 

“Are you certain ?” 

“Quite. You see, they’re the ordinary pattern—two 
battants swinging on hinges like doors and fastened 
in the middle by a, bolt operated by a cross-handled 
knob. Both are the same, and both are securely 
fastened.” 

“Then the room can’t be empty. This sort of win¬ 
dow doesn’t unlock from the outside. She’s here some¬ 
where, and we’re too late.” 

“But-” 

“The bed! Look at it, chief. It’s too thick, don’t 
you think so? Something is between the mattresses.” 

With a bound Balai crossed the room and snatched 
off the counterpane. Then together they lifted the top 
mattress. There lay the body of Leontine, its eyeballs 
slightly staring, its features a bit purple and distorted 
but already beginning to assume the majestic calmness 
of death. 

For an instant Clara was almost exultant, forgetful 
of the pitiable figure before her. 

“The trail of The Squid!” she murmured. “Here 
it is, unmistakable at last.” 

“Que est-ce?” 

“I said—she was smothered, like Desdemona.” 

“No,” corrected Balai, pointing to a ring of dis¬ 
colorations about the dead girl’s throat, she was 


200 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

strangled—regular apache job. The only question is, 
how did he get out and manage to leave the door locked 
behind him? He must have had a pair of key forceps 
and have turned it from the hall.” 

“That can’t be,” said Clara, picking up the key and 
offering it for examination. “Forceps would have left 
marks, and there are none.” 

The room, alone among the servants’ quarters, was 
at the front of the house, and Clara, stepping out upon 
its balcony, could look down into the courtyard. She 
had left Balai staring stupidly at the key. She knew 
what he would do. He was a man now with a fixed 
idea, bent upon a certain line of action. Leontine, 
to his mind, had been killed by just one hand 
and no other, and nothing remained to be done but 
to discover a possible theory to account for the 
details. 

Meanwhile, he to whom all manner of clever dodges 
were ready to be attributed stood idly by the fountain, 
as if he hadn’t a care in the world. 

“Poor little crook!” said Clara to herself, looking 
down. “I know now that he isn’t responsible. Yet 
the law, if it catches him, will take him and shut 
him away from this beautiful sunshine just the 
same.” 

The vines, hanging in great profusion from the cor- 


THE FATE OF AN INFORMER 


201 


nice above, almost hid the balcony from the view of 
those below. But La Haquenee had sharp eyes, and 
looking up he gave a questioning lift to one of his 
brows. 

Seeming not to regard him, Clara raised her hand 
to her hair and began to stroke it with two outstretched 
fingers. It was the danger signal agreed upon that 
night of the vandal’s visit. 

Five minutes later, Balai went downstairs to take 
La Haquenee into custody along with Ferrard. The 
apache was nowhere to be found. 



CHAPTER XI 


AVIGNON 

While these events were taking place in Paris, an 
incident happened in Avignon, far south in the valley 
of the Rhone, which, though apparently trivial, needs 
to be recorded here because of the almost unbelievable 
consequences which were to flow from it. 

Avignon itself, by the way, is almost unbelievable. 
It was an old and curious town even in 1316, when 
Pope Jean XXII made it famous by building there the 
Palais des Papes, whose magnificently stern gray walls, 
in spite of the various restorations which they have 
undergone, still stand as the most imposing example 
of undecorated medieval architecture in all France. 
For years it was the center of religious wars carried on 
by catapult and cross-bow, by knightly encounters 
with lance and sword and by hot pitch and stone balls 
dropped through artfully prepared apertures in over¬ 
hanging battlements. Then oblivion settled over it, 

and to most people today it is only a name, or the 
202 


AVIGNON 


203 

scene of one of the fascinating romances of the elder 
Dumas. 

Yet Avignon is real enough, and some fifty thousand 
people call it home, living there in the fond belief that 
they are in the twentieth century. And the traveler, 
stopping on his way to Marseilles and passing up the 
broad, straight, plain-tree shaded rue de la Repub- 
lique which leads from the station, is apt at first to 
agree with the native. There are trolley cars, electric 
lights, cinemas, billboards and cheerful-looking cafes. 
The only anomaly which strikes the eye at first is 
that furnished by les ramparts, a wonderful old wall 
of defense, bristling with towers and bastions and com¬ 
plicated with the cunning artifices that were in vogue 
when archery was the right arm of warfare—a wall 
without a break save for a number of arched gateways, 
and enclosing the entire town with a barrier thirty 
feet high. 

But if the stranger will remain a day or two he will 
begin to feel that the trolley cars not the ramparts 
strike the anomalous note. He will find his imagina¬ 
tion slowly being dominated by the Papal Palace and 
by the charms of the matchless gardens just beyond 
upon the summit of a butte overlooking the Rhone. 
And he will drift ever more and more back into the 
past as he gazes upon those red-gray tile roofs, that 


204 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

forest of spires and towers which the view from the 
butte lays at his feet. For Avignon is a city of towers 
—towers which could no more be duplicated today 
than could be revived a general belief that the earth is 
flat. 

He will soon discover, too, why so few visit this as¬ 
tonishing city, with its miraculously preserved atmos¬ 
phere of the moyen-age. Seldom a week passes, either 
in summer or winter, when the gusts of that chilly 
northwest wind known as the mistral do not come to 
recall to mind the almost universal misery and discom¬ 
fort under which life was lived in the historic centur¬ 
ies. And whenever the weather happens to be warm 
and windless, there arise on every side such odors as 
have been preserved by no other city in the Occident 
since kitchen drains were invented. 

In fact, the modernism of Avignon is a very thin 
veneering, applied only in spots, and among its streets 
the rue de la Republique is a grand exception—a mere 
frontispiece of cleanliness and sanity to a volume of 
many beautiful but almost undecipherable and fre¬ 
quently sinister pages. Most of the streets are less 
than half the width of the average American sidewalk, 
more crooked than cow-paths, and as dark at night 
as is the world to the blind. 

Murder there is a commonplace, and after nightfall 


AVIGNON 


205 


the square before the old city-hall—for even that com¬ 
paratively modern building is old—fills up with such 
figures as are not to be seen elsewhere outside of jails, 
pest-houses and lunatic asylums. What the slums are 
like not even the police thoroughly know, but even a 
casual walk through the quarter pierced by the notor¬ 
ious rue des Grottes will convince one that here are 
the worst in modern Europe. Built upon a hillside, 
with many of its alleys mere twisting stone stairways; 
with overhanging walls—always of stone—nearly 
touching at the eaves of their crazy roofs and convert¬ 
ing even noonday into an everlasting twilight; with in¬ 
fected ooze running sluggishly over the rough pave¬ 
ments—no, not even the slums of Venice can equal 
this, while Five Points, New York and Whitechapel, 
London, were in their vilest days but garden spots in 
comparison. 

Avignon, in short, is still essentially what it was in 
the time of Pope Jean, and anything which could hap¬ 
pen in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, barring a 
few knightly processions and the pageantry of papal 
inaugurations, can and does happen there now. The 
conventional inhabitants keep aloof, as conventional 
inhabitants no doubt kept aloof from the Pope’s Pal¬ 
ace, when, as frequently used to chance, it was under 
siege. The average citizen, not so conventional, goes 


206 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

to a bull-fight every Sunday afternoon at Bagatelle, 
just across the river. 

It was one of those rare days, when Avignon is as 
warm and sunny as Italy. The mistral for once was at 
rest, but the odors from the gutters had not yet recov¬ 
ered from the blow of the past week. In the midst of 
the slum quarter already mentioned, a gamin as rag¬ 
ged as the best but somewhat more superficial in his 
dirtiness, was attempting to catch a parrot which ap¬ 
peared to have injured itself in attempting to fly from 
some lofty perch. Its try for liberty, though disas¬ 
trous, had not, however, robbed it of all spirit, and it 
was persistently evading the boy, whose patient stalk¬ 
ing had thus far achieved no result beyond a long 
series of disappointments. 

In the Papal Gardens, looking off towards the Rhone, 
was an oldish young man, of a keen, muscular build, 
whose clothes were of just the degree of shabbiness and 
disrepair to make him seem unworthy of attention. 

Outside the gardens, upon the steps of the great ca¬ 
thedral of Notre Dame des Dorns which rises between 
them and the Papal Residence proper, sat a man con¬ 
siderably less young but no less poorly dressed. He 
was, however, much above the average in weight and 
stature, and not even his craftily stooped shoulders 


AVIGNON 


207 


could hide his enormous strength. A cap containing 
a few pieces of money lay at his feet. For he was a 
beggar, and kept moaning to all passers-by, especially 
if they had the air of being pious: 

“Brav-e person! Brav-e person!” 

The rest was a mumble, but anyone familiar with 
the accent of the region would have been able to guess 
that what he said was: 

“My good sir, or lady, give me something for charity. 
It will bring you happiness to give to the blind.” 

The gamin chased the parrot, whose ill-considered 
strike for freedom had so rudely taught it that those 
who live lonp ia cages cannot fly, and finally succeeded 
in catching it. Wrapping the bird in his coat to pre¬ 
vent all biting and squawking, he hurried through a 
tiny slit of a street just off the rue des Grottes, darted 
up a dark stair which looked exceedingly rickety but 
was in reality as solid as masonry could make it, and 
entered a small, ill-lighted room. 

Set at liberty, the parrot limped across the bare, 
cement floor, established itself in a corner, and re¬ 
garded its captor in malignant silence. 

“Pretty Polly!” chirped the boy. “Pretty Polly! 
Does Polly want a cracker?” 

The parrot gave no sign either of hearing or under- 


208 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

standing, and set itself slowly to preening its green 
plumage, though the sound of those English words, 
coming from such a source and in such a place, must 
have impressed it as something extraordinary—that is, 
if it really possessed any of those powers of divination 
and intelligence commonly attributed to its species. 

The room, furnished only with a bed and a chair, 
was in itself extraordinary in that quarter of the rue 
des Grottes, for it was almost as clean as a New Eng¬ 
land kitchen. And the room beyond, into which the 
boy penetrated in search of food for his new pet, ap¬ 
proached the marvelous, being not only clean but com¬ 
paratively comfortable. 

The man in the ancient gardens of the Pope gave a 
glance about him as if to make certain that he was 
alone, drew a pair of binoculars from a pocket of his 
loose-fitting coat, and trained them upon an object 
before him which appeared to have awakened his 
curiosity. It was the great tower of Philippe le Bel, 
rising in its medieval grandeur and simplicity from 
the borders of Villeneuve on the farther side of the 
river. 

There would have been nothing remarkable in his 
action had he looked in the least like a tourist, or even 
an ordinary citizen in comfortable circumstances. 


AVIGNON 


209 


D hilippe le Bel and the twin eminences of the less ven¬ 
dable but still picturesque Fort St. Andre beside it 
ire well worth looking at. Interest in architecture 
>hown by such an extremely shabby individual, how¬ 
ever, must have excited attention had there been any 
ittention to excite. It was odd, to say the least—as 
)dd as such a thing as a pair of field-glasses sud- 
lenly making its appearance from such a disreputable 
:oat. 

He seemed to feel this, for he continued from time to 
time to glance about him. But in the Rhone country it 
is believed by almost everyone that unclouded sun¬ 
shine is dangerous, and that shadeless corner of the 
bluff was deserted. 

“There is nothing in Philippe le Bel—there never is 
any more,” muttered the observer. “I certainly must 
have chased old Bluebeard out for good. And that 
means that he has taken up his quarters nearer by.” 

With that he shifted the direction of his glass from 
the great tower to a lesser one rising from the very 
quarter where the parrot-catch had so lately taken 
place. This closer tower rose very little above the sur¬ 
rounding roofs, and looked at first glance hardly like 
a tower at all. Its upper course had in fact, been re¬ 
moved, probably on account of weakened foundations, 


210 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

leaving a mere stump; and about its base and nearly 
hiding it was a cluster of stone tenements, not more 
than two or three hundred years old but already dan¬ 
gerously out of plumb. 

“If that isn’t his new headquarters, at least it ought 
to be. I’m going to get a look inside if I have to use 
a flying machine.” 

In thus continuing to address himself, the man used 
an even purer brand of English than that of the boy 
who had caught the parrot. But on passing the beg¬ 
gar on his way out of the gardens, he dropped a coin 
into the waiting cap with an imprecation in idiomatic 
French. 

The beggar made a sufficient display of indignation. 
But it was short-lived; and shuffling to his feet he al¬ 
most immediately set himself to ambling with ponder¬ 
ous strides in his insulter’s wake. If he was blind he 
gave no signs of it, and the two men were almost to¬ 
gether when they reached the rue des Grottes and 
entered—at the very door through which the gamin 
had disappeared. 

“Well, Squelette,” said he who had used the spy¬ 
glass: “What have you got there?” 

The boy, sitting on his haunches trying to coax his 
bird to eat a bit of cheese, turned and grinned over his 
shoulder. 


AVIGNON 


211 


“He’s a talker, boss—at least I t’ink he is by de 
looks of his feaders. W’en he gits over havin’ hurt 
himself by tryin’ to be a wild ’un, maybe he can tell 
us somethin’. Must ’ve lived aroun’ these diggin’s 
quite a w’ile.” 

“Always fooling,” said the beggar, following the oth¬ 
ers as they adjourned to the second room where a fire 
was burning in a sheet-iron cook-stove before a well- 
spread table. 

“Got anything better than parrot for a man to 
eat?” he added in French as he lowered his great bulk 
into a chair. “If I was Lepadou here I’d fire you and 
hire a housemaid.” 

“If you was de boss, Mist’ Forgeron,” retorted the 
boy pleasantly, “there’d be less stuff for makin’ good 
billiard balls between your eye-brows and de back of 
yer head.” 

Lepadou, or The Ferret—for it was indeed he—play¬ 
fully pulled Le Squelette’s ear and began doing justice 
to the substantial meal which the gamin had pre¬ 
pared. 

“Cut out the sparring, you two,” he laughed. “Ever 
hear of Bluebeard Forgeron?” 

“Yes, and I’ve heard of Cock Robin and of Little 
Red Ridinghood, too,” Forgeron grumbled. “Blue¬ 
beards, squids, parrots—what next? It’s over a year 


212 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

now since you got me to give up a good police job and 
come down here lookin’ for wild geese. What have we 
got to show for it? A lot of experience with bad smells 
and bad grub. I have to pretend to beg for my livin’. 
At the commissariat it wasn’t exactly velvet or one 
blaze of glory, but it beat this.” 

“Tut! You’ve had a trip to Cassis and one to 
Venice.” 

“Exactly, lookin’ up two women killed by sharks.” 

“Not proven. And there’s the bal des Tapettes case 
in Paris.” 

“But when are you going to take it up, chief? 
A glimpse of Paris, now, would be something 
like.” 

“There’s no hurry, my dear man. Let the police 
exhaust themselves first. Then we can go in and guess 
that what they haven’t guessed is the thing to guess at. 
Saves time in the end.” 

“I suppose so,” admitted the pretended beggar 
grudgingly. “But for God’s sake don’t go and get in¬ 
terested in that parrot. I can’t stand another animal 
on my mind. Fish things are enough.” 

Lepadou in fact had now his eyes fixed attentively 
on the bird, which had just stalked in from the outer 
room, and to the other’s sally he answered nothing at 
all. 


AVIGNON 


213 

He had been in Europe two years now, searching for 
a criminal whom he believed to be at the bottom of a 
long series of revolting crimes, and he wasn’t quite 
certain even yet whether this criminal was a man, an 
organization, or an idea. Beyond question, there was 
an idea, amounting almost to an evil spirit, more or 
less in evidence everywhere since the war. One could 
hardly pick up a newspaper without coming upon proof 
of it, and many said that the world had broken loose 
from all moral restraint and was drifting back into bar¬ 
barism. 

If this were so one couldn’t hope to do much, and 
he might as well go back to New York, resume the 
name of McClue and once more pursue detection as 
a business. But he wasn’t quite ready to give in to 
this spirit-of-evil hypothesis. It might be suggested 
by the state of things in Russia and Turkey, but there 
was no need to invoke the devil to account for America 
and France. 

“What one really means by a devil is simply a man 
gone wrong,” he would often say to himself. “As long 
as I’m on the trail of a man, let him be as bad as 
they make them, there’s at least some hope of suc¬ 
cess.” 

He called this supremely bad man by many fanciful 
names—among them Bluebeard, as has just been noted 


214 THE TRAIL of the squid 

—but he usually thought of him now as The Squid. 
Strange! He had first used that word in a letter to 
Clara Hope, and since then had heard nothing either 
from her or his New York office. 

The silence of the office could easily be accounted 
for, as the office was Clara so far as correspondence 
was concerned, and it was always understood that he 
was not to be bothered with routine matters when 
away on a special case. But what about the absence 
of love-letters? 

Had it been any other sort of letter which he thought 
himself entitled to expect, he would have moved heaven 
and earth to discover what had caused their interrup¬ 
tion. With love-letters it was different, and he had let 
many months go by without even making an enquiry. 
Then, overcoming an almost boyish sensitiveness, he 
had written again and yet again, three times in all, 
without eliciting an answer. Since then there were 
times when he thought that Clara regretted having 
promised to marry him, and was chosing silence to ac¬ 
quaint him with the fact. But most of the time he 
forced himself to see that she never could have received 
his letters. He even indulged in the fancy that the 
enemy had contrivd somehow to surround him with an 
impalpable wall of silence, which in its way isolated 
him from the world as completely as if he had himself 


AVIGNON 


215 


slipped back into those dead centuries whose piles of 
masonry now rose about him. 

It would have been difficult to entertain any such 
notion—back in New York. But as in the East the 
traveler gradually finds his Occidental habits of mind 
slipping from him, so by living in imagination in the 
Dark Ages one becomes infected by their darkness. 

There was also another reason, perhaps, why he 
submitted so tamely to the situation. Having a duty 
to do, he wanted to do it alone, and was afraid that if 
he did succeed in opening communication with Clara 
she might come rushing to him, and thus become a 
sharer in the dangers which he knew were in the very 
air he breathed. 

It made no difference how invisible they were, he 
knew that they were there. It was only natural, he 
argued, that the enemy should try to lull his sense of 
precaution. For instance, nothing at all had happened 
at Avignon during the entire period of his stay. Nor 
were the bathing accidents at Venice and Cassis en¬ 
tirely conclusive of The Squid’s continued existence. 
Who could say positively that those two women had 
not, as the authorities generally believed, been ripped 
open by monster requins —or as Forgeron preferred 
to put it, by sharks? 


2 i 6 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

The stabbing of the artists’ model at a Paris ball, 
accounts of which had been recently filling the papers, 
was more directly suggestive. An unknown masquer¬ 
ader deliberately gotten up as a squid suggested that 
vague sort of horror which the detective had come to 
look for in connection with the enemy. Yet outwardly 
he seemed to take little interest in the case. 

“It was too obviously staged to attract my atten¬ 
tion,” was the only explanation which he gave. “I be¬ 
lieve he knows what I call him, and adopted the squid 
disguise as a sort of challenge. If we let him draw us 
out, we’ll find only a tentacle. What I want is the 
head.” 

The only thing which the detective definitely knew 
about this Head was that it had once imprisoned an 
intended victim in the tower of Philippe le Bel. But 
that was enough. He had sensed in Avignon the place 
above all others where such practices as he believed 
this monstrous new edition of Jack l’Eventreur to be 
guilty of could be carried on with comparative^impun¬ 
ity. 

So he continued to hang about, quite aware that 
he was observed by the enemy, if the enemy had any 
existence outside of his own imagination; knowing, in 
fact, that he would be observed anywhere, but wanting 


AVIGNON 


217 


to be on the spot when the crowning horror should be 
attempted. There was something besides mere killing 
in what was going on, of that he felt assured, and he 
didn’t believe that his presence would drive this ill- 
defined something out of as choice a nest as Avignon. 
More likely the Head would even feel safer if it knew 
that its pursuer were near at hand. 

The parrot began to scream in the raucous fashion 
of its kind; Lepadou pulled himself out of the musing 
fit into which he had fallen. There was something in 
the parrot’s tone which sent a curious shiver through 
his marrow. 

“Gee!” broke in Le Squelette. “Did yeh hear 
dat? Sounds like he’s been learned to imitate a 
woman.” 

The detective nodded. 

“Sounds very much like that. I’d say he d come 
from a household where one of the women was very 
unhappy—to put it mildly.” 

“Wouldn’t have to look far for such a family around 
here,” grunted Forgeron. 

“That’s so, though they don’t usually scream. 
Where’d you find him, Barebones?” 

“Just beyond de rue des Grottes as yeh turn to de 

left.” 

“Near my tower, then.” 


218 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“What tower?” Forgeron demanded, looking up from 
his victuals. 

“You know that block of old hovels we’ve been 
trying to get into?” 

The giant assented. 

“We’ve spent too much time poking around them 
for me to be likely not to. But I never seen even a 
counterfeiting plant that was more unsociable to 
strangers. That day I tried to beg there, they threw 
dirty water down on me—at the door with the dead 
vine above it, confound them.” 

“Exactly. And I found out today that those old 
buildings surround a tower. That’s why I asked you 
just now if you’d heard of Bluebeard. He was fond of 
towers, and so was his original, Giles de Reys. Tow¬ 
ers have good, thick, sound-proof walls. Nothing in 
the modern world can compare with them.” 

Lepadou stopped. The parrot, leaving off scream¬ 
ing, had begun to talk. It was a rapid jargon, difficult 
to follow, but all at once a single word came out with 
unmistakable clearness and was repeated time and 
again, followed by a mocking peal of laughter: 

“Le Seche-ha, ha, ha! Le S&che! On m’appele le 
S&che” 

“ ‘Le Seche, they call me le Seche,’ ” translated 
Lepadou, leaning over to stroke the parrot’s back and 


AVIGNON 


219 


getting savagely snapped at for his pains. “Wouldn’t 
it be wonderful. Forgeron, if after all we should find 
him this way? I don’t suppose I need call your atten¬ 
tion to the fact that le Sbche is French for devil-fish, 
or squid?” 

“It’s an idea,” admitted the inspector of police. 

“You bet it is, and I’m going to see what comes of 
it.” 

Taking an old coat, the detective threw it over the 
bird, and having thus muffled its noise prepared to carry 
it from the room. 

“Come on, Squelette,” he cried. “Let’s see if we 
can’t get into friendly relations with some of these 
stand-off neighbors of ours by pretending to be looking 
for the owner of this talking devil. Anyway, we may 
be able to pick up some information.” 

But though they worked the scheme diligently for 
the next hour, they met with no better success than on 
former occasions. Those who lived in the slum about 
the tower knew nothing of parrots, it seemed, and cared 
considerably less. But they had strong feelings about 
intruders entering their doors, let alone getting a peep 
at their back yards. In one or two instances the two 
narrowly escaped the liquid reception of which For¬ 
geron had complained. There was nothing left to do 
but return baffled to their lodgings. 


220 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“We’ll have to wait, boss, and get him tame,” sug¬ 
gested the boy, when they were back at the table fin¬ 
ishing the interrupted meal. “Maybe he’ll take to 
sayin’ a lot of things.” 

“He’ll have to say them mighty quick then,” Le- 
padou answered, his mouth full of chicken pie. “I’m 
like Forgeron, and think it’s time we were getting on 
to that Paris job. Guess I’ll run the risk of having it 
spotted, and drop a wire to Tardieu. At the worst 
it will only fail to reach him.” 

He carried out his intention that very night, for a 
sudden restlessness had seized him, and in the morn¬ 
ing, rather to his surprise, he found an answer waiting 
at the telegraph office. So, the wall of silence didn’t 
extend in the direction of Paris. This thought, how¬ 
ever, and the reflections it might have provoked, 
quickly left his mind at a sight of the message itself, 
which read: 

“Thank God you’ve been heard from at last. Wish 
you would come here. The disappearance of your rep¬ 
resentative worries me, though perhaps you know 
where and why she has gone. Kindly advise.” 

Lepadou, his face grown suddenly white and 
drawn, turned to Le Squelette, who had accompanied 
him. 

“My representative!” he repeated. “What repre- 


AVIGNON 


221 


sentative? He speaks as if it was a woman, and some¬ 
thing appears to have happened to her. Can it be— 
look here, Barebones. We’re starting for Paris by the 
next train. Go and tell Forgeron. I’m—I’m afraid 
it’s Clara.” 


CHAPTER XII 


AN ELOPEMENT 

The death of Leontine, Julien’s arrest and the disap¬ 
pearance of La Haquenee had fallen like three sepa¬ 
rate thunderbolts upon the St. Germain menage. Pa 
Granger, openly more affected than anybody, was for 
returning at once to America. 

“I didn’t like it here even at first,” he told his wife. 
“Why you should ever have taken it into your head 
to go into Silva Jonquille’s kitchen and work as if you 
was a hired girl is more than I can understand. But 
now that Millie has got herself tangled up with a crim¬ 
inal—it’s too much. We’re goin’ to take the first boat 
home.” 

“I’ll never desert Julien,” declared Millie, coming 
into the room in time to hear the last remark. 

“Won’t you? We’ll see about that. I was willin’ 
to be a little free and easy, seein’ as we were in Paris. 
But I draw the line at murder. You go and pack your 
trunk.” 


222 


AN ELOPEMENT 


223 


“Don’t be ridiculous, Eben,” put in Mrs. Granger 
soothingly. “Mr. Ferrard looks to me like a very nice 
young man. The only murderer we know of is that 
dreadful doorman. He’ll be found to have done every¬ 
thing, mark my words.” 

“What? You’re willin’ your daughter should spend 
half her time tryin’ to see a man who’s in jail? Some¬ 
thing’s come over you, ma. Let the French courts 
prove that Haquenee did everything—that’s their busi¬ 
ness. Mine is to get you two back to the United 
States.” 

And in spite of Ma Granger’s firm statement that she 
had no intention either of dragging Millie from her 
young man or of leaving her alone in her trouble, her 
husband set out to make arrangements for departure. 
He had actually engaged reservations upon the next 
steamer leaving Le Havre before he discovered how 
really futile his efforts were. For the authorities 
flatly refused to vise his passports, politely informing 
him that he and his family might be needed as wit¬ 
nesses. 

“I forgot that I wasn’t livin’ in a free country,” he 
stormed. 

“Stuff!” responded his wife. “I don’t believe you’re 
really vexed about that.” 

“Why don’t you believe it?” 


224 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“Because, it won’t be any disgrace, will it, if the 
papers home report our testimony? It isn’t everybody 
who can get as far as testifyin’ in court—in Paris.” 

“Maybe not. And I don’t object to it so much so 
far as only I’m concerned. But to have you and 
Millie-” 

“You can’t keep us out, pa. We’ve got a right to 
our little fling too. And when I think how blue it will 
make some of the neighbors feel, it goes a good ways 
towards reconcilin’ me with the designs of Provi¬ 
dence.” 

“Well,” snorted Granger, “if I’m goin’ to be called 
to testify I mean to have something to testify to when 
I get there. Needn’t think that we’d any of us make 
much of a hit in Salem, Mass., with any of the infor¬ 
mation we’ve collected so far.” 

“What do you mean, pa?” 

“I mean that we’re in a state of complete ignorance 
as to what is and has been actually goin’ on in this 
house. In court you ain’t allowed to tell what you 
think and suppose. You’ve got to know.” 

It was thus that Granger announced his intention 
of playing the detective, and a few evenings later, as 
he and his life-partner were getting ready for bed, he 
reopened the subject with hints of a clue. 



AN ELOPEMENT 


225 


“I don’t suppose you’ve noticed,” he said, “what 
a mighty little amount of worry Silva’s showin’ over 
what’s likely to happen to this young Ferrard?” 

“She is behavin’ splendidly,” declared the wife, pin¬ 
ning a silk handkerchief neatly around her head so she 
might not “miss” the switch which had been tempo¬ 
rarily relieved of duty. 

“I call it heartless,” said Granger. “For after all 
they were engaged, and now when he’s standin’ under 
the shadow of the guillotine-” 

“Oh, she knows that isn’t goin’ to happen to him,” 
ma broke in. “As to her bein’ engaged, she sees now 
she’s got to give him up to Millie.” 

“Wish she hadn’t given him up quite so easy,” 
the other grumbled. “If you want my opinion, she 
was glad of an excuse. She’s got her eye on the 
butler.” 

“A servant? Eben, what are you talkin’ aboutl” 

But Mrs. Granger was unable to keep a shade of 
interest from creeping into her tone, and Granger, thus 
encouraged, paused impressively in front of her and 
began to emphasize his words with a forefinger. 

“Servants,” he said, “is human beings like the rest 
of us, and a man is a man and women are women. 
Clara Hope has got her eye on the butler too. Haven’t 
you noticed how Silva watches her?” 



226 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“I'm disappointed in Clara,” admitted the wife, seat¬ 
ing herself thoughtfully on the edge of the bed. “She 
looked like a quiet girl, and she's turnin' out I must 
say to be somethin’ of a flirt.” 

“Never mind your disappointment, ma—look deeper. 
It isn't Peters that Clara Hope is after.” 

“Bless me! Who is she after, then?” 

“Who? Have you forgotten how the chief of police 
tore around here that day the body of the chamber¬ 
maid was found? He was expectin' to arrest La 
Haquenee—thought he knew just where to lay his 
hands on him. But the fellow’d already gone, and 
hasn’t been seen or heard of since. Now do you get 
the point?” 

“I remember, of course, but don't see what there is 
in it to make a point of.” 

“You don't? Why, a minute or two before he disap¬ 
peared he's known to have been in the courtyard. And 
Clara was up in a balcony lookin' out. She must have 
given him the tip, that’s the point. And now she’s 
pretendin' to be sweet on Peters just for the sake of 
pullin' the wool over our eyes. She's Haquenee’s 
girl. You can't fool me—anyway, not as easy as 
that.” 

“Eben, what’s got into you lately?” asked Mrs. 


AN ELOPEMENT 


227 


Granger, betraying her first trace of uneasiness. “You 
never used to get so excited over other people’s busi¬ 
ness.” 

“Do you call it other people’s business when Millie 
goes to see a man who’s in prison?” 

“No, but you needn’t be so uncharitable even about 
that. And we were speakin’ of Clara Hope. For heav¬ 
en’s sake don’t you go sayin’ anything around.” 

“I shan’t, ma—at least not yet. But since I’ve got 
to be here I’m goin’ to keep my eye peeled. It’s time 
we knew something about the sort of folks we’re livin’ 
with.” 

While this conversation was going on up stairs, 
Clara, on the lower floor, was doing a great deal to 
justify at least a certain part of Granger’s avowed sus¬ 
picions. Certainly a change had come over her since 
the discovery of Leontine’s lifeless body. She seemed 
to have become timid, and Peters could no longer move 
without finding her at his heels. 

“I am afraid in this house,” she kept telling him. 
“Every minute I expect to come upon that apache, and 
have my throat cut.” 

The butler at first retired before her as from danger. 
But she persisted, forcing him to listen to detailed rea¬ 
sons for her fears. 

“I’ve thought it all out,” she would say. “Leontine 


228 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

was a police spy, and Haquenee killed her on that 

account.” 

“How could he have killed her with the door 
locked?” was Peter’s invariable question. “Nobody 
could either get in or get out.” 

“Somebody did it. And getting in was easy enough. 
The door hadn’t always been locked.” 

“But getting out?” 

“He didn’t get out. He stayed there with the body 
until Balai and I picked the lock. He was in there 
when we were, don’t you see? Probably hiding behind 
the door. And he slipped out when we weren’t look¬ 
ing. It makes me shiver to think of it.” 

This conversation, always practically the same, was 
strung over a number of different occasions, but on no 
occasion did she mention having seen La Haquenee 
just before the lock was picked. Pa Granger, who 
observed a number of these interviews from a distance, 
was in no position to mark the omission, or even to 
sense the intense watchfulness which lurked in the 
depths of Clara’s eyes. What he noted was simply 
what he termed her “carryings on.” 

The situation might have deceived almost anyone, 
especially when Peter’s cautious frigidity began to 
thaw. But it was not until this very evening, when 


AN ELOPEMENT 


229 


Granger was confiding his suspicions to his wife, that 
Clara, seated in a dim corner below stairs and pressed 
by the butler to explain how any criminal could pos¬ 
sibly have found the nerve to remain in a locked room 
with the body of his victim, finally ventured: 

“Did you ever hear of Lepadou?” 

Peters shook his head. 

“Well, I’m working for him,” she went on. “His 
real name is Ferris McClue, and for months now he’s 
been on the track of a human monster, a sort of mod¬ 
ern Jack the Ripper. Marie, some call him. Others 
know him as Le Caillou. Both names mean a kind of 
stone. And he would be capable of staying in the room 
with the body—even gloating over it. For he has the 
hardest heart in the world.” 

There was a sudden stir in the shoulder upon which 
she had been resting her head. 

“Do you mean you’re not a servant girl?” Peters 
demanded. 

“I’m a detective,” said Clara simply. “But the 
point is, this man I’m telling you about murders like 
a wild beast, with no motive apparently except the 
pleasure he gets in contemplating suffering. Can you 
imagine anything more horrible?” 

She had raised her head, and there was a gleam so 
sharply observant in the look she cast upon the butler 


230 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

that only a blind man could have pretended not to 
notice it. Peters responded as if to an open chal¬ 
lenge: 

“So you’ve been suspecting me all the while, have 
you, and only pretending that you thought it was 
Haquenee?” 

“Perhaps. Or perhaps I wasn’t sure.” 

The answer was a soundless laugh. 

“I’ll say then that you’re brave, whatever else you 
are. The monster you describe would be apt to 
strangle you.” 

“And what are you going to do?” 

“Tell you something. I’m a detective myself—from 
Scotland Yard.” 

Clara turned away so that the expression of her 
face could not be observed. Then she too laughed. 

“You don’t blame me, Peters, for wanting to make 
sure?” 

“Not at all. But aren’t you even surprised?” 

“A little, maybe. If you’re a detective, what has 
become of l’Estrange’s butler?” 

“I’m his butler.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“It’s simple enough. There’s been talk about 
l’Estrange in London for a number of years now. 


AN ELOPEMENT 231 

Folks say he’s been working a big swindle by forging 
old masters and selling them over there.” 

“Then you’re not working on either of the murders?” 

“No.” 

“And l’Estrange is a swindler?” 

“That’s what I’ve been hired to find out.” 

“I see. And how we’ve been misunderstanding each 
other—you and I. But it’s all right now.” 

“I’m not so sure, Clara, I’m not so sure.” 

“Why, what is there now?” 

“A lot. You’ve been pretending to want a good 
deal of my company lately—to protect you from La 
Haquenee, you said it was.” 

“Well, it was true, Peters, that part of it. He knows 
I pointed him out to Balai in the garden, not to men¬ 
tion what he may have overheard me say inside. It’s 
no joke to have betrayed an apache, and he still at 
large.” 

The stealthy watchfulness had crept back into her 
eyes. One would almost have said that its stealthiness 
was wilfully thin. And again she was avoiding the 
truth about La Haquenee. But this time Peters did 
not start. He appeared to be absorbed in his own 
ideas. 


232 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“You remember what I said to you that night in 
your room,” he brought out after a silence. 

“Yes, you said you were dangerous when roused, and 
pretended to be a dreadful lady-killer. But that was 
a part of your made-up character of course.” 

“But it wasn’t. And I didn’t pretend to be a lady- 
killer exactly. I said that there were some women it 
was hard for me to keep away from, and that you were 
one of them. That was true even when I thought you 
were a servant girl.” 

“Peters!” 

“That’s right, laugh at me. I thought you were an 
impudent little hussy trying to make your place easy 
for yourself, and yet I found it hard to keep away. 
You can imagine how I feel about it, now that I know 
who you really are.” 

“Is it as bad as that?” 

“It couldn’t be much worse. When I was really the 
butler here I naturally thought it beneath me to have 
anything to do with the under-servants. One gets in 
the habit of not thinking of them as human beings. 
That helped me keep my head with you at first. But 
now-!” 

Peters choked. 

Clara’s hand, which had been lying abandoned in 
her lap, made an almost infinitesimal movement. He 



AN ELOPEMENT 


233 


caught it and drew it to him with sudden passion. If 
a shudder went through her he did not appear to notice 
it, and in another instant her lips were his. 

“Then it wasn’t all pretense, Clara—your wanting 
me?” 

She answered slowly, at the end of a silence: “No, 
it wasn’t all pretense, and it isn’t. I want you as I 
never wanted anybody in my life.” 

The two were so occupied that they did not notice 
a third who came within sight of them, then stole away 
with a soft rustling of skirts. Not Granger but Silva 
had caught them this time. Wringing her hands as if 
in acute distress, she hurried rapidly away to Clara’s 
room, from which she came out a moment later carry¬ 
ing a bundle. This, too, escaped observation, though 
the time came when the contents of that bundle were 
known wherever newspapers were read. 

What was never published was a letter written a 
little later by Clara to Judge Tardieu, which, after 
a few preliminary explanations, proceeded as fol¬ 
lows: 

It has been arranged, and we are to elope. You will 
understand that Peters is not duped, either by my toleration 
of him near me or by my pretense of trusting him. I made 
it too clear that I thought the murderer of Leontine was 


234 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

The Squid for him to have any doubts about my being 
dangerous—that is, worth suppressing. But he thinks I 
think he is duped, to a certain extent at least. So he is 
going to let me fancy that I am trapping him, hoping thus 
to lead me on until I am trapped myself. 

It was amusing, in spite of the odiousness of it all, to 
see him maneuvering. On the face of things there was 
nothing to prevent our being married openly and honestly, 
and of course I made a feint of standing out for this. He 
began at once to make believe that he was afraid of the 
apache himself—on my account. 

“Haquenee,” he said, “mustn’t know where you are, or 
even that we have gone away together. IT 1 never breathe 
easy until you’re safely hidden out of his way.” 

It was very thin, but then that was all it needed to be. 
Peters wasn’t trying to convince me of his own good inten¬ 
tions, or do anything else but give himself an excuse for 
carrying out his game. The only thing in which he imag¬ 
ines I’m deceived is in my estimate of his powers—and my 
own. As to that, God knows he may be right. But I’ve 
got to take the risk, for unless I can get him to lead me to 
his nest in hopes of getting me completely in his hands, I 
shall never know where nor what that nest is. 

Oh, I am sure I’m on the trail. If he wasn’t The Squid 
I could never feel such an intense loathing. There is some¬ 
thing about him now which makes the blood fairly crawl. 
He knows how I feel, yet fancies that I am gloating over 


AN ELOPEMENT 


235 


my skill in having hidden it. And I am to leave here 
tomorrow without telling a soul, with the promise that he 
is to follow me in two or three days. 

If you still have any doubts about his being our man, 
listen to this: 

The place where I am to wait for him is Rognerons— 
yes, Rognerons, a tiny way-station not three miles from 
AvignonI 

I am to take the eight o’clock train for Marseilles, but 
as that doesn’t stop at Rognerons, I change at Lyons to 
the local, and once at my destination am supposed to put 
up at an inn called the Hotel de la Paix. Do you see how 
carefully the arrangements have been made to delay my 
arrival till after dark, and also to give him a chance to be 
there ahead of me? 

I wonder how far I shall get before something happens, 
and whether it is to happen before I reach the inn or after¬ 
wards. Perhaps there isn’t any such inn—but that is a 
detail. You mustn’t try to have me shadowed this side 
of Lyons. It would be too risky, and I’m almost certain 
of Lyons. Beyond that—well, look for me as I leave the 
station at Rognerons, for it is then, I believe, that I will 
be getting into the outer meshes of the net. Wire to the 
police there. But be certain to have them in plain clothes, 
and under orders to take no action unless an emergency 
calls for it, since if we give the slightest alarm I’ll get 
nowhere and discover nothing. 

I may not even have a chance to post this letter, in 


236 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

which case I shall start anyway, and depend upon luck. It 
has done me good to write it, whether it ever reaches you 
or not, for I simply had to confide in somebody. It may 
be my last adventure. But I mustn’t think of that. As 
Mr. McClue used to say, “Take your precautions, but never 
really think of the danger till it’s over!” 

On the mprning after writing this letter, Clara 
found under her door a railroad ticket with the reser¬ 
vation of an entire first-class compartment on the 
rapide to Lyons. She had wondered whether the plot 
was to have her take any particular coach or not, and 
here was the answer. 

“It’s a test,” she reflected. “Nothing will disturb 
me between here and Lyons, but he wants to see how 
reckless I am, how far I am willing to trust myself. 
Anyway, I’m going to use this transportation.” 

She packed a hand-bag, made certain of the good 
condition of her favorite automatic, and went quietly 
downstairs. In a dark corner of the lower corridor 
the butler was waiting for her. 

“You swear that you’ll truly marry me?” she de¬ 
manded in a pleading note after the first exchange of 
greetings, though the hollowness of the farce she was 
playing almost made her laugh. 

Peters pressed her hand. 


AN ELOPEMENT 


237 

“I’m leaving you independent until I do, ain’t I? 
Don’t talk foolishness. Here’s money for traveling 
expenses.” 

He thrust some notes into her hand, and she left 
the house without encountering another living crea¬ 
ture. This was what she had hoped and expected. 
Being alone, she might post her letter to Judge Tar- 
dieu. But how could she be certain that she was 
alone? Even that man carrying a sack of coals who 
now appeared from out the morning mists in the direc¬ 
tion of the river might be appointed to watch her; and 
by the time she came within sight of the first of those 
little tobacco shops in the fronts of which most of the 
letter-box slots of Paris are fixed, the streets were 
lively with early laborers hurrying in and out of quick- 
service comptoirs where coffee is sold over bars for a 
couple of sous. 

So she let the letter remain in her bag, reached the 
gare de Lyons and boarded her train. There she was 
for the first time met by the unexpected. Her com¬ 
partment had been lavishly decorated with white 
bridal roses. 

Clara choked. Oh, why hadn’t she married The 
Ferret long ago instead of letting every little thing 
interfere? Then she would have had him by her side 
this minute. He would not be lost, and she would not 


238 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

be enduring this horrible travesty of a wedding-jour¬ 
ney. Yes, most decidely, the flowers were too much. 

But the train had not been long in motion before it 
came to her that Peters might have had some motive 
besides a wanton desire for mockery. He was making 
her conspicuous. Not even the blindest police force 
on earth would have any difficulty in tracking the 
young woman with a single handbag who had traveled 
in a bower of roses. As far as Lyons, that is. Be¬ 
yond that she would disappear among the crowds. 

But assured at least of a respite, she leaned back 
in her seat and let the landscape of the so-called 
cote d’or swirl past the windows. Certainly there was 
nothing golden about the outlook, threatening rain- 
clouds giving it for the time a decidedly bleak and 
barren appearance. 

A small envelope half concealed in a bunch of flow¬ 
ers in the seat opposite finally caught her eye. It con¬ 
tained a sheet of paper on which was typewritten: 

“Have wired for a limousine to meet you at R. so 
as to save you the trouble of hunting up the hotel 
after dark. Please wear some of the flowers , as it is 
by them that the driver is to know you.” 

Here at last was a sure sign that she was actually 
en route for the great adventure, evidence that the fate 
intended for her could not be carried out save where 


AN ELOPEMENT 


239 

the key to the mystery was hidden. And where was 
that? No need to ask the question now. The pre¬ 
tense of having her stop at Rognerons was hollow 
indeed, with this limousine waiting to take her to 
Avignon. 

How wonderfully Mac had sensed from the first that 
the place was Avignon. But had he gone there? Had 
he found what she was going to find, and never been 
able to get word to the world? The thought made her 
shiver, but did not tempt her to give up. It was too 
late now to think of getting her letter to Tardieu. She 
must manage, somehow, to telegraph him from Lyons. 
Meanwhile it might be well to see who else was aboard. 
That promised driver at Rognerons had made her think 
of accomplices. 

She left her compartment and passed the entire 
length of the train, pretending to be looking for a seat. 
There was a surplus of passengers. There always is 
on the continent, or at least seems to be, for it is a 
poor traveler who cannot multiply himself into two or 
three by the aid of a little baggage. Those loungers in 
the narrow aisles along the side of the coach invariably 
leave their contemplation of the view and rush to claim 
every unencumbered place the moment a new-comer 
seeks to penetrate their compartment. Clara could 
not help smiling, for this ancient game was still some- 




240 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

what new to her. But what she was particularly look¬ 
ing for was a man whose glance at the bunch of roses 
which she now wore at her breast should betray more 
than a casual interest; and being absorbed in what 
proved a vain undertaking, she totally overlooked a 
woman wearing a veil and wrapped in a long, gray 
impermeable, or waterproof coat, who was standing 
half hidden at the further end of the corridor in her 
own car. 

The instant Clara passed, this woman, without look¬ 
ing up at all, slipped into the vacant compartment. 
But it was vacant again when Clara returned, and 
having her thoughts still on other matters she failed 
to note any signs of its having been visited. 

At Lyons she got out, took a bit of paper on which 
she had written a message to Tardieu, pinned it to a 
generous bank note and tossed it into the bureau of the 
Posies et Telegraphes as she passed. A despatch 
written in cipher and addressed to the Palais de Jus¬ 
tice , would, she felt confident, not be neglected, and 
she had acted so quickly that it was practically impos¬ 
sible for anyone to have observed the maneuver at 
all. 

From Lyons she traveled third class, and felt safe 
in the throng of disputing, laughing, eating, drinking 
and singing bourgeois that surrounded her. The gay- 


AN ELOPEMENT 


241 


ety of the French middle classes en tour is contagious, 
and in spite of the slow speed and frequent stops the 
trip was not even tedious. Nevertheless it was after 
nightfall when she at last stepped out upon the plat¬ 
form at Rognerons. 

The place was dimly lighted and practically de¬ 
serted. But there, just beyond the barrier where she 
gave up her ticket, stood a waiting limousine. Tardieu 
should have wired to the local force long ere this. But 
if he had, his agents were certainly obeying instructions 
and keeping out of sight. She had hardly hoped for 
such skill and discretion among the representatives of 
the Surete General in a small town. Could it be that 
her message had miscarried, and that she was plunging 
into the unknown without protection? 

“How unreasonable I am,” she whispered to her¬ 
self. “I would have been angry if anybody had come 
openly and spoiled it all, and here I am half fright¬ 
ened because everything is being done just as I 
asked.” 

Another woman had alighted from the train, a 
woman wearing a veil and a long, gray impermeable— 
and Clara was surprised to note that she had a large 
bunch of white roses at her breast. More surprising 
still, this unknown made straight for the waiting ma¬ 
chine, and before even a protest could be raised had 


242 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

entered it and disappeared around a corner, the driver 
showing every sign of having received his instructions 
in advance. 

Of course the fact might be just that. Why shouldn’t 
a woman be expected, and be driven off to her desti¬ 
nation? But the roses were a strange coincidence, to 
say the least. And there was no other machine in 
sight. 

Was this some of Balai’s work? Had he discovered 
her plans and sent one of his own operators to carry 
them out in her stead? It seemed unlikely, not to say 
impossible. Then the woman might be an innocent 
traveler. And she had been mistaken for Clara and 
was being whirled all unsuspecting towards the head¬ 
quarters of The Squid! 

Agitated beyond measure, Clara left the station and 
made for the lights of a garage which were dimly vis¬ 
ible through the fog and drizzle. 

“Did you notice that limousine?” she asked of the 
garage-keeper who came forward to meet her. “Did 
you see which way it went?” 

“Mais out, madame. It took the Avignon road, et 
trls vite” 

“Very well, then. I want to hire a machine—the 
fastest one you have—and a driver.” 


AN ELOPEMENT 


243 


The garage-keeper made difficulties, declaring that 
his only available chauffeur was still at dinner. Being 
of Latin blood, it was difficult for him to conclude a 
business deal in otherwise than a leisurely manner, 
with a certain amount of time devoted to compliments 
and irrelevant but excited conversation. But the terms 
which Clara offered so moved him that within less 
than five minutes she found herself on the road to 
Avignon with the garage-keeper himself at the wheel. 
The road if dark was also empty, and they drove 
recklessly until—within about a mile of the city—the 
tail -lights of the other car came in sight. 

After that it was easy following, and the two ma¬ 
chines were brought practically together by the cus¬ 
toms inspection which both had to undergo at the 
ramparts. Avignon still clings to the ancient practice 
of the local duane, and one cannot return from the 
shortest excursion beyond the walls, even in the street 
cars, without having to declare that nothing taxable 
or forbidden is being smuggled in. The inspection is 
a farce—for where could one buy contraband or much 
of anything else in the vicinity of Avignon? But the 
principle of interference with trade, coming down from 
the days of the crusades, is maintained, and that ap¬ 
pears to be the point. In this instance a few words 


244 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

were exchanged between the customs agent and the 
first of the two drivers, so the advantage of the forward 
car was entirely lost. 

Clara passed beneath a magnificent arch of masonry 
without being at all conscious of the completeness with 
which she was leaving the twentieth century behind. 
Her mind was filled with the other woman. What 
could have happened to keep her silent all this while? 
Surely if she had taken that car by mistake, thinking 
it was her own conveyance, she would have raised an 
outcry at the first unexpected turn. Was it possible 
that she meant to come to Avignon? Or was there 
someone else in the car, someone who had concealed 
himself until it was too late for her to escape? In that 
case she was probably already drugged, or otherwise 
rendered insensible. And she was being whirled to her 
doom by a man who thought she was his master’s 
intended victim. 

“When she stops and they take her out, I’ll have to 
do something even if I ruin all my plans,” Clara told 
herself as the car ahead moved leisurely through the 
length of a broad, straight, well-lighted street. 

After a few blocks the traffic dispersed into narrow 
ways on either hand, for the street had come to an 
end in an open square several feet higher than itself 
and accessible only to pedestrians. The forward auto- 


AN ELOPEMENT 


245 

mobile stopped and the woman with the roses got out, 
apparently under no shadow of restraint. 

Clara paid her driver, told him to wait where he 
was for an hour before going home, and set forth on 
foot. It began to look as if this were indeed one of 
the chief’s operators, and that she had worn the roses 
on purpose to have her identity mistaken. Anyway, 
she was permitting herself to be led quite unresistingly 
by the man who had driven her in. They crossed a 
corner of the square, came to the mouth of a dark and 
narrow alley, and were quickly engulfed in obscurity. 

In following them Clara experienced a sensation 
like that of stepping from a lighted room into a 
cellar. The slippery, uneven pavements had worse 
than a cellary smell, and the walls of the dim buildings 
on the alley’s either side made one think of the crypt 
of some devil’s cathedrals, being too close together to 
seem like houses bordering a public right-of-way. At 
intervals a miserable light shone feebly in the murky 
atmosphere—more like a glow-worm than a street-lamp 
—and below one such she caught a glimpse of a half- 
destroyed sign, on which was still to be deciphered 
the words: 

“Rue des Grottes ” 

There came a low door, at which the woman’s com¬ 
panion knocked softly. It opened, and Clara—follow- 


246 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

ing now close upon the heels of the couple—noticed 
only a dead vine above her head as she stepped in 
after them. Then the door shut, leaving her in total 
darkness. 

Without knowing it, she stood within one of the 
stone tenements about Bluebeard’s tower at whose door 
The Ferret had so often knocked in vain. 




CHAPTER XIII 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 

It seemed to Lepadou an interminable trip from 
Avignon to Paris. Had he known that it was certainly 
Clara of whose disappearance Judge Tardieu had writ¬ 
ten, it would have been easier to endure the delay, for 
she must have been gone for a couple of days now and 
whatever was to happen had probably happened 
already. But the detective was tortured by the hope 
that in spite of all appearances to the contrary it 
might be some other woman—some enemy agent, per¬ 
haps, who had merely assumed Clara’s position. It 
was a thin hope and hardly supported by reason, but 
it sufficed to make the wheels of the night train seem 
to stand still even as they rushed along at the best 
speed of the famous P. L. and M. 

Arriving at an hour when only work people were 
abroad, he proceeded nevertheless to the Palais de 
Justice. Tardieu had not yet put in an appearance, 
but he had left a message for this particular visitor 

saying where he would be found—at about noon. 

247 


248 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

Lepadou had the morning on his hands and em¬ 
ployed it in securing lodgings for himself, Forgeron, 
Le Squelette and the parrot, choosing an obscure local¬ 
ity on the rue Monge not far from the Jardin des 
Plantes. Tardieu had said that he would be at the 
boulevard St. Germain establishment, and thither 
Lepadou hurried when it was finally time. 

The judge was in l’Estrange’s studio, seated before 
one of the pictures with a wrapt expression more sug¬ 
gestive of an art-critic than a magistrate. He started 
up at the sight of the detective’s drawn and haggard 
face. 

“I’m afraid,” he began, grasping the other’s hand, 
“you don’t know where the young lady has gone.” 

“Who was she?” demanded Lepadou, sitting down. 
“What did she call herself? I know of nobody here 
who was assisting me.” 

“Clara Hope was the name she gave—and her cre¬ 
dentials were beyond question.” 

“So much the worse. Is this the party?” 

He took a small photograph from his pocket and 
held it out. Tardieu nodded. 

“That is undoubtedly the party. But what is it? 
You look ghastly. Of course to have your 
assistant-” 

“My assistant was also my fiancee.” 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 


249 

“Good God!” cried Tardieu. “And I let her under¬ 
take the most dangerous case that ever came into my 
hands.” 

“It wasn’t your fault, Judge. You didn’t know. 
But tell me what has become of her?” 

“Vanished like a puff of smoke. I wasn’t consulted 
about her final adventure—kindly believe that.” 

“I do, but there’s no good in our sitting here crying 
over spilled milk. Tell me everything that’s happened, 
from that bal des Tapettes affair down to the present 
moment.” 

Tardieu complied, briefly outlining all the informa¬ 
tion in his possession relating to the deaths of Rougette 
and Leon tine and to Silva Jonquille’s household. 

“Balai is certain that the culprit was La Haquenee, 
at least in Leontine’s case,” he went on, “and for once 
I must say I think he is right. But this series of dis¬ 
appearances-’ ’ 

“Series? Have there been others besides Clara’s?” 

“Have there? My dear man, in one single morning 
I received a batch of reports from this house that made 
me think I must be asleep and dreaming. This apache 
—you remember him?” 

“Distinctly.” 

“Well, he had slipped off the day before. And now 
it was Miss Hope and-” 

“Who else?” 



250 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


“Silva Jonquille and the butler. With Ferrard in a 
cell, that left only the Grangers here. You see, Balai 
was so taken up with his search for the apache that he 
neglected to set a guard. This was last Monday. 
Peters—he’s the butler—came back the next day, but 
he refuses to give any clear account of himself.” 

“How about Miss Jonquille?” 

“Still missing. We’ve heard no more of her than 
we have of Miss Hope—less, in fact, for we know that 
Miss Hope took the morning rapide as far as Lyons, 
traveling in such style that I think she was trying to 
leave a trail. But beyond Lyons everything is lost. 
Tuesday I sent you word, and here we arcJ-Wednes- 
day, and no further advanced, though it is obvious, I 
suppose, that Miss Jonquille was either with or after 
the apache, and that Clara Hope followed them” 

“Why obvious? Clara, if I know her, would only 
have followed a suspect.” 

“Isn’t La Haquenee a suspect? The chief, as I told 
you, had been employing Leontine as a spy, and we’re 
justified in concluding that the apache did for her 
when he found it out.” 

“Hm! How long had La Haquenee been missing 
before the body was found?” 

“He wasn’t missing until after the body was found. 
According to the testimony of several witnesses who 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 251 

saw him from the street, he’d been hanging about the 
courtyard for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then Clara 
came out on a balcony and he dodged back of the 
house. That’s the last we’ve heard of him.” 

“Naturally,” said Lepadou. “For of course he 
climbed over the rear wall and took to some cover 
which he’d already prepared. But you say the doors 
and windows of Leontine’s room were locked. If he 
was in the courtyard for twenty minutes before the 
alarm was given, he must have been there while her 
room was still fastened. Therefore he couldn’t have 
been guilty of going in, murdering the girl, and coming 
out again—and Clara must have known it. 

"But somebody was guilty,” objected the judge. 
“There must be a trick about that locked room, 
and Haquenee could have Worked it as easily as 
another.” 

“Maybe—or maybe the murderer locked himself in 
with the body and stayed there till Clara and Balai 
entered. Then he could have slipped out. But in 
that case he wouldn’t have had the preceding twenty 
minutes in the garden. Until you find some trick about 
the locked room I’m afraid I’ll have to leave the apache 
to one side.” 

“By Jovel” exclaimed Tardieu with some chagrin. 
The chief suggested that ther*e must be a trick, and I 


252 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

let my mind be carried away by the idea. But—slipped 
out behind their backs! That’s a whole lot simpler. 
I’m ashamed that it never occurred to me.” 

“It occurred, you may be sure, to Clara, so it’s 
unlikely that she wasted any time over La Haquenee. 
We must look for somebody who wasn’t seen during 
the period when Leontine’s room is known to have 
been closed against entry. What about this Peters?” 

“Why, a good deal but nothing very definite. At 
one time I know Miss Hope suspected him of not 
being what he pretended to be.” 

“Good. But what was her attitude towards him after 
this second murder?” 

“I can tell you that,” cried a voice from the hall, as 
Pa Granger—unable any longer to content himself with 
the post of listener—burst into the studio. 

“I’d been keeping an eye on things for some time,” 
he went on. “Anyone could see that there was some¬ 
thing in the wind from the way she and Peters was 
always goin’ off into corners and whisperin’. I thought 
it was a bluff at first—that she was really sweet on La 
Haquenee—and I don’t know yet that I wasn’t right. 
But after Leontine was killed, I tell you, the Hope girl 
went after the butler in good earnest. Such sweet- 
heartin’ I never saw. It was scandalous.” 

Clearly Granger had only a vague idea of whom he 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 


253 

was addressing, but Lepadou refused to permit him 
to be interrupted, being anxious for information what¬ 
ever the source. It thus came out that on the morning 
of Clara’s departure Granger was up early and had 
caught sight of her saying good-bye to Peters. 

“Our friend appears to be a typical amateur blood¬ 
hound,” remarked the detective with a bitter smile 
when once again he and the judge were alone. “More 
vindictive than sympathetic. Nevertheless he helps to 
^tablish your most important point. Clara was culti¬ 
vating Peters, and must have had a purpose. And now 
I’d like to have a talk with Mrs. Granger.” 

Tardieu rose and addressed himself to an old-fash¬ 
ioned bell-pull. 

“Have you discovered anything?” cried Millie, enter¬ 
ing a few seconds later in response to the summons. 

“Only that we want to see your mother,” responded 
the judge. 

“But why haven’t you? Why don’t you do some¬ 
thing?” 

“What is there for us to do, do you think?” Lepadou 
put in. 

“Why, to find out that Mr. Ferrard is innocent.” 

“Is there any doubt about it, then?” 

“Or course not. But Chief Balai can’t seem to see 
it and insists on keeping him locked up in a cell.” 


2 54 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

‘Til see what I can do to bring the chief to reason.” 

“You will? Then I’ll never forget you the longest 
day I live.” 

It was with difficulty that Millie could be induced 
to go. Was not here a man at fist who seemed capable 
of understanding her faith? She would have liked to 
stay and pour out her heart to him all day. 

“Too bad to lift her hopes too high,” sighed Tardieu, 
watching the door close finally behind her. “Since 
Balai found that dagger hilt in Ferrard’s paint-tube 
I’ve hardly dared to look that young lady in the 
face.” 

“If I were you,” suggested the detective, “I’d look 
askance at the paint-tube.” 

“Why?” 

“Nothing, only innocent young girls have sometimes 
strange ways of being in the right. Who was it tipped 
off Balai to search the studio, Silva Jonquille?” 

“Pardon me,” retorted the judge with considerable 
heat, “but I believe it was an anonymous letter. You 
don’t know her, of course, but Silva Jonquille strikes 
me as a person who might have a strange way of 
being right.” 

“At her age? I’m afraid she’d be too forgiving to 
insist on rightness. Millie Granger, you see, was her 
rival—apparently a very successful one. Did she 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 


255 


blame Millie, or only blame Ferrard? It isn’t so easy 
to fathom a woman’s feelings in a case like this.” 

“Here is Mrs. Granger!” cried Tardieu, jumping 
nimbly to his feet. “She, I think, will be able to con¬ 
vince you that Silva hated nobody at all.” 

But Mrs. Granger seemed not in her usual spirits, 
and suffered herself to be introduced without offering 
a word beyond what the ceremony required. Pressed 
for an opinion of her missing protegee, she became 
fussy in her choice of a chair, as if in no hurry to 
respond. 

“You don’t know how bad I feel about that girl,” 
she brought out at last. “And when I think that 
maybe it’s all my fault-” 

“Your fault,” interrupted the two men in a breath. 

“That’s what Eben says. ‘Ma,’ says he, ‘you’re 
foolish to go on accusin’ yourself when there ain’t a 
thing to accuse yourself of.’ But I ought to have told 
somebody what I’ve been keepin’ to myself—from 
everybody, that is, exceptin’ Eben, and he’s only heard 
of it just now.” 

McClue made a movement of impatience. 

“I’m listening,” he let fall. 

“I notice you are, young man, but you must give me 
time to get my breath. All I wanted to say is—Silva 
has wandered off.” 


256 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


“Has what?” 

“She was queer, that’s as near as I can describe it,” 
continued the narrator without noticing the question. 
“Her grandfather, you know, was queer before her, 
and led a scandalous life. I don’t mean that she took 
after him in that, but she had spells of accusin’ herself 
of things that she didn’t know whether she’d done or 
not. And she took it to heart to think that she resem¬ 
bled the old reprobate in some respects.” 

“Then it’s your opinion that she has wandered away 
in one of these spells you tell us about?” 

“That’s what I’m trying to say if you’d only give 
me time. I believe she has wandered away and done 
herself a harm. And I might have had her watched.” 

Mrs. Granger began violently wiping her eyes, and 
it was only after repeated urging that she went on: 

“That’s all I know about Silva. And as for Clara 
Hope, I guess it’s only too plain that worryin’ is thrown 
away on her. There’s one thing, though, that puzzles 
me.” 

“What is that, Mrs. Granger?” 

“Her trunk. If she went away voluntarily and for 
no good reason, she couldn’t have expected to come 
back. So why didn’t she take her trunk with her? 
I’ve asked Eben, and he can’t give a guess at it any 
more than I can.” 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 


257 

“What did she take?” asked McClue in a carefully 
controlled voice. 

“Just a grip-sack,” was the answer, “and not much 
in it either. I put her room to rights the mornin’ after 
she was missin’ and everything was there except her 
brush and comb, a black alpaca she usually worked in 
and a black and white shepherd’s plaid that I’ve seen 
her have on sometimes in the afternoon.” 

“But if she left her trunk-” 

“Oh, there was nothing much in her trunk except a 
lot of theatrical truck in a tray tucked in at the 
bottom. Stage-struck sometime, I suppose. She didn’t 
even lock it.” 

Mrs. Granger took her departure without making 
any further revelations. 

“I can’t believe it,” ruminated Tardieu. “Silva Jon- 
quille was never irresponsible. It’s just an old wives’ 
tale.” 

“I hope you’ll forgive me,” Lepadou returned, “but 
I’m more interested for the moment in Clara’s bag¬ 
gage. It’s rather surprising.” 

“Her taking so little?” 

“No, her taking so much. Why that alpaca dress 
since she also had the shepherd’s plaid? But we must 
get to Peters.” 

“Yes, but wouldn’t you first like to talk with 
l’Estrange?” 



258 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“What, is he in town?” 

“He’s here in the house. Arrived last night, but 
I’d forgotten to tell you.” 

Tardieu went personally to knock on the door of 
the famous artist’s suite, and a few minutes later 
l’Estrange appeared. He was dressed in conventional 
street clothes save for a black velvet smoking-jacket 
which gave a touch of informality to his otherwise 
rather severe figure. His manner when Lepadou was 
presented expressed the quiet cordiality of a man of 
the world, and as he flung himself a bit wearily upon a 
long, cushioned seat, he asked in what manner he could 
be of service. 

“You must be vexed at the loss of your pictures,” 
suggested Lepadou, as if anxious to avoid a direct 
interrogatory. “Two gone, I understand—one through 
an act of deliberate malicious mischief.” 

“Yes—and a third damaged and clumsily repaired.” 

“I hadn’t heard of that. Do you suspect any¬ 
one?” 

“Nobody. The judge here says that the malicious 
mischief was done by a man named Bee. All I know 
is he made a very thorough job of it. The shreds of 
canvas—or what’s left of them since Miss Hope hid 
them between her mattresses—are all to the bad, as you 
Americans say.” 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 


259 


“Clara hid them? Mrs. Granger didn’t men¬ 
tion-” 

“I rescued them in advance of her,” explained Tar- 
dieu. “And now that we’re talking of pictures, there’s 
something I’m reminded of, l’Estrange. Miss Hope 
had an idea—which I was inclined to share with her 
—that you painters with your knowledge of the human 
face could tell us magistrates a great deal if you only 
would. But she always said you would never put your 
professional insight at our disposal.” 

“And she was right, as far as I am concerned,” re¬ 
sponded the painter. “The things I guess about people 
would hardly do for a police dossier, and I’m afraid 
your juries would regard them as very poor evi¬ 
dence.” 

“Yet if you want my impressions,” he went on, turn¬ 
ing towards Lepadou and dropping from French into 
English, “I don’t mind making an exception—in favor 
of Miss Jonquille. The idea seems to be current that 
she has run away with an apache. That’s the final 
absurdity. She is in some respects a very unfortunate 
woman, but I can’t imagine her running away at all. 
Perhaps I’m influenced by own personal interest, but 
the very notion is to me impossible.” 

“Your personal interest?” ventured the detective. 

L’Estrange nodded. 


26 o 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


“She was mad after Julien Ferrard, and I gather 
that the cad deserted her. I feel free to confess 
that in his place I would have acted otherwise.” 

“How far does your bad impression of Ferrard go?” 

“No farther than I have indicated.” 

“But you said that Miss Jonquille was unfortunate.” 

“Yes, in loving a man unworthy of her. I meant no 
more than that.” 

“And this Peters,” Tardieu interposed. “There’s 
no doubt, I suppose about his really being your old 
butler?” 

“Oh, none in the least. It would be difficult to 
duplicate as good a servant as he is. Would you like 
to talk to him? I’ll send him in.” 

L’Estrange took his leave, his manner more reserved 
than when he entered, as if his defense of La Gadelle 
had led him further than he had intended. Almost 
immediately Peters arrived at the door, downcast and 
embarrassed. 

“My master says I must tell you everything,” he 
began, addressing the detective. “It isn’t much, sir, 
and nothing to be proud of. Nothing to be ashamed 
of, either. I’m not the first man who was ever made 
game of by a woman.” 

“I don’t understand you.” 

“I was referring to Clara, sir, the bonne b tout jaire 
—or rather, the girl I thought was the bonne b tout 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 261 

faire. If you’ll pardon my saying so, I found her very 
much to my mind—at least at first—and the feeling 
seemed to be reciprocated. So we decided to go away 
together. For the looks of things, and so as not to 
attract the attention of the doorman who had turned 
out to be a dangerous criminal, we changed our plans 
at the last minute—she starting ahead and I promising 
to follow her in a few days.” 

“Where is she now?” 

“I don’t know, sir. You see she had just told me 
that she was not a servant but a detective. In fact I 
pretended that I was a detective, too, not wanting her 
to think that I was beneath her. And my idea was 
that this Haquenee might be laying for her, and that 
she’d better slip away alone so I could see that he 
didn’t pick up her trail. But the minute she’d gone I 
got to thinking—there’s no telling about women. So 
I took the next train, to make sure that she really 
intended to meet me and-” 

“Confound you,” The Ferret interrupted, “get to 
the point. Where had you told her to meet you? 

“At a place called Rognerons, sir, at the Hotel de la 
Paix. But-” 

There was a knock. Millie Granger stood at the 
door, this time with a message. 

“It’s from Miss Hope, in a cipher I gave her,” cried 
Tardieu, when he had torn open the envelope. “And 




262 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

here’s another from the bureau of the Postes et Tele - 

graphes at Lyons.” 

Lepadou snatched the second message, and while the 
judge was busy with the cipher read half a dozen lines 
of French to the following effect: 

“We are transmitting a communication picked up in 
this office last Tuesday morning by the charwoman. She 
put it into her pocket and failed to give it up until now. 
Beyond the fact that it was wrapped in a bank bill, we 
know nothing further about it.” 

The cipher message, as whispered by the judge into 
the detective’s ear, ran thus: 

“I am on my way to The Squid, pretending to be eloping 
with Peters who says he is going to meet me later at the 
Hotel de la Paix, Rognerons. But in my compartment I 
have found a note, promising me a limousine from the 
station and asking me to wear a white rose so that the 
driver can identify me. I feel certain that the real desti¬ 
nation of that machine is Avignon. So be sure to have 
local agents in plain clothes at Rognerons to follow the 
woman who gets off the evening train from Lyons. Tell 
them to keep out of sight and not interfere unless it is 
absolutely necessary.” 

Tardieu sighed as he finished translating, adding 
aloud: 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 263 

“To think this only reaches me now, and that I 
failed her!” 

“You couldn’t help that,” said Lepadou. “Evidently 
she was afraid to file the message openly, and if that 
infernal charwoman hadn’t been a coward as well as a 
thief we’d never have received it at all.” 

“How do you make that out?” 

“Why, she began by stealing both the message and 
the bank bill, but not being able to read the cipher she 
finally came to the conclusion that it was something 
official and got afraid to keep either.” 

The detective spoke deliberately, but his voice was 
as hard as steel as he turned to Peters and read both 
messages aloud. 

“Now what have you got to say for yourself?” 

“Nothing, sir, only that I went to the hotel she men¬ 
tions and found she wasn’t there.” 

“And so you came right back?” 

“Yes, sir. As I say, I had an idea that she’d been 
making game of me. But I see now it might have 
been something even worse.” 

“But that note among the flowers. The automo¬ 
bile?” 

“I swear, sir, I never heard of them till now. I 
sent her some flowers, but didn’t say anything about 
her wearing them and there was nothing said about any 


264 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

machine. We were to go to Rognerons, no farther.” 

“Where were you while Leontine’s room was 
locked?” 

“Taking a walk down by the quai, sir. When I got 
back the house was all in an uproar.” 

“Such confusion that nobody saw you, eh?” 

“I don’t know as to that. But-” 

“Wait,” interrupted Lepadou. “I want to have a 
look at those window fastenings myself.” 

The three men moved on to the room of the deceased 
lady’s maid, and there to their surprise they found 
Balai engaged in the occupation commonly known as 
puttering around. 

“I think I’ve solved the difficulty,” announced the 
chief, shaking hands somewhat carelessly as Lepadou 
was made known to him. “The murderer got out and 
fastened one of the windows after him, just as I always 
knew he must have done. So perhaps we won’t need 
any more foreign assistance.” 

“Shut it after him how?” Lepadou demanded. 

“It’s simple,” explained the other. “This is the 
window here. The fastenings, you see, are operated by 
a single turn of the knob. A long bolt buried in the 
woodwork runs into a socket in the frame at the top, 
and another shoots into a socket in the still at the 
bottom. But the lower bolt is too short to work, and 



LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 265 

the upper one has its socket worn away—the metal 
thimble is gone. The window only seems to be locked. 
A good jerk will open it at any time.” 

“And you think that the murderer drew it to behind 
him while he was standing on the balcony, and climbed 
down by the vines—in broad daylight with a crowd 
in the street?” 

“He could have climbed down under the vines,” said 
Balai. “And here’s a tree which half hides the balcony 
itself. It was child’s play.” 

“It would be no child’s play to shut the window 
from the outside with nothing to lay hold of it 
by,” objected the detective, attentively examining the 
bolts. 

Balai smiled. 

“Do you see this small round hole sunk into the 
putty of the sash? That’s where he stuck some sharp 
instrument, say an awl. It gave him plenty to take 
hold of.” 

Slowly Lepadou’s face underwent a change. The 
look of impatience and incredulity with which he had 
at first listened to the chief’s explanations, disappeared. 

“I’ve been mistaken,” he declared, approaching 
Peters with outstretched hand. “Appearances were 
against you, but this worn window-fastening lets you 


266 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

out—as it undoubtedly let out the apache in the literal 

sense of the word.” 

And turning to the other two, he continued: 

“L’Estrange was probably right about Silva Jon- 
quille, too. But for the moment my only object is to 
discover Clara Hope. She was evidently deceived by 
the window-fastening, and thought she was leading 
Peters on to betray a murder plot when she was only 
leading him to play the fool. And somebody, Tardieu, 
has taken advantage of the situation.” 

“Whom do you mean by somebody?” inquired the 
judge, surprised and a little doubtful as he and the 
detective walked down the corridor together. “Can 
it be the man that Clara called The Squid?” 

“The same. And he caught her away from home, 
alone, with her attention focussed—say upon Peters. 
The Squid slips the note she speaks of into her com¬ 
partment, has her wear the white roses, and his limou¬ 
sine has taken her—where she guessed it would.” 

“Then she must almost have run into you.” 

“Yes, we were both in Avignon—at the same time, 
within a few blocks, perhaps within a few feet of each 
other. And now it may be too late. But I am going 
back.” 

He was as good as his word, and the dawn of an¬ 
other day found him once again at the ancient city of 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 267 

Popes. No time to waste in strategy now. The secret 
of the rue des Grottes—for there still his suspicions 
were centered—must be laid bare at once, by force if 
necessary. So he presented his credentials at the 
police prefecture and asked that a detachment of men 
in uniform be put under his orders. 

The prifect proved to be an old friend from Paris 
days, who readily granted what was required. But 
force was unnecessary. The door beneath the dead 
vine was swinging open in the wind, revealing an empty 
room from which all vigilance had been withdrawn. 

Lepadou rushed through the house, crossed a narrow 
open space at the back, and was standing at the foot 
of the Bluebeard tower. But here, too, was only empti¬ 
ness—an open door giving upon a stone stairway. 
Mounting this he reached a circular apartment, the 
floor of which showed a gaping hole in the middle. 
The detective looked down, then drew back with a 
cry. Beneath him was a dark pit reaching apparently 
to the bottom of the tower. With no railing about the 
pit-mouth, it needed but night to convert it into an 
almost certain and deadly trap. 

“You may go,” said the detective, returning to his 
men. “Everything is all right and I shan’t need you 
any more.” 


268 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“But you look as if you weren’t feeling well,” one 
of them ventured. “Better let us stay and help you.” 

“Nonsense! There’s nothing to do. You report 
back at the prefecture. The party I was hoping to 
find has given me the slip, that’s what’s the matter 
with my looks.” 

“All the same, I don’t like it,” the other persisted 
to his companions when they had retreated as far as 
the first street corner. “He was well enough when 
we started out, and now you’d certainly say he had 
seen a ghost. What in the world can have hap¬ 
pened?” 

“I followed him upstairs,” said a second member of 
the possee. “It’s a mighty queer place. There’s a 
room there with the floor only running around the 
edges of it. And believe me or not, when he caught 
sight of it he began to cry.” 

“Cry?” 

“Yes, sir. I was right behind him and I heard him 
sob three or four times like a baby. So I came away 
before he had a chance to find out that he wasn’t 
alone.” 

“Then I’m going back, orders or no orders,” said 
the first speaker. “The rest of you stay here and wait 
for me.” 

This being agreed to, the man retraced his steps and 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 269 
caught sight of Lepadou re-entering the tower door. 
But this time the detective did not ascend the stair. 
He poked about among the angles and cranies of the 
wall just within the entrance, found a huge stone slab 
which turned upon a pivot, and disappeared. The 
watcher following at his heels saw a sudden light flash 
from the obscurity ahead. Descending a long flight 
of steps to which the turning stone gave access, Lepa¬ 
dou had found it necessary to guide himself with a 
pocket-torch. 

In spite of this precaution, he stumbled over some¬ 
thing. It proved to be a spade, but he left it lying 
where it was and reached a sort of cellar totally with¬ 
out windows into which fell a few faint light rays from 
the well-hole far above. There was no flooring save 
the hard, time-molded earth, which, not having seen 
the sunlight for centuries, gave forth an indescribable 
odor of vague decay. 

“Water—I’ll have to find some water,” muttered 
the detective, after he had examined the cellar-bottom 
inch by inch and on his hands and knees. “Beaten 
hard everywhere. A wonderfully good job.” 

With that he turned and hurried up the stairs. 

But it was only a few minutes before his unseen 
companion, who had remained hidden in a niche, saw 


270 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

him descending again, carrying a bucket of water. 

This water Lepadou began to sprinkle copiously 
about the floor, where it rested in tiny puddles on the 
surface until the place looked as if it had been strewn 
with bits of broken glass which sparkled brightly as 
the light from the torch swept over them. Only in 
one spot did the water immediately sink into the 
earth. 

Carefully marking the outlines of the spot, the 
detective secured the spade and set himself to digging 
—to the growing horror of the concealed observer, who 
whispered to himself: 

“We oughtn’t to permit this. It begins to look as if 
he’d lost his mind. That’s sure a grave that he’s dig¬ 
ging into, but if I stir he’ll probably lay me out with 
his spade.” 

That it was a grave was soon beyond doubt. What 
else could have had that sinister, rectangular outline? 
But it was not deep, and at the end of ten minutes 
Lepadou was reaching down to remove the last bits 
of earth with his hands. 

Curiosity overcame the prudence of the man in the 
niche, and he crept forward to look over the other’s 
shoulder. What he saw at first was an object of indis¬ 
tinguishable form which might have been almost any- 


LEPADOU ENTERS THE TOWER 271 

thing at all. But when the woman’s cloak which cov¬ 
ered it was slowly drawn aside and the rays of the torch 
directed more fully into the pit, it resolved itself into 
that from which one looked away after a single glance. 
And then the eye, recovering its courage, looked again 
and saw a figure which had once been sweet and tender 
that still wore a bunch of withered bridal roses pinned 
at its breast. 

“Clara!” breathed the detective, falling flat on his 
face. 

Minutes passed, and he lay so still that one might 
have thought that death again had entered that hideous 
chamber. Then suddenly he got to his feet, restored 
the grave with meticulous care to its original condi¬ 
tion, and walked straight to where the well-intentioned 
but now frightened watcher was crouching. 

“My assistant, Miss Hope, was decoyed here and 
murdered,” he announced, in a voice the calm of which 
but served to accent the wild distortion of his fea¬ 
tures. “You followed me, which is all right—only be 
careful that you say nothing to anybody about what 
you’ve seen.” 

“But Captain, a dead body! I’ll have to report it. 

“You’re under my orders. Say nothing to anybody, 
do you understand?” 

The Ferret’s tone grew quieter still as the purport of 


272 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

his words became less and less rational, and he ended 
almost in a whisper: 

“No infernal inquest is going to be held over her 
body—not while I’m alive. It’s man to man now. The 
law be damned.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


BAITING THE TRAP 

Georges Frasque has never, like Paul Fort, been 
crowned king of Parisian poets, but he probably enjoys 
an even wider reputation. And that is because he is 
not only a poet but a journalist. Many call him the 
Don Marquis of Paris, and certainly his column in 
La Nuit, “A Prop os des Bottes” is responsible for 
more chuckles of delight—to say nothing of laughter 
and heartfelt sighs—than almost anything else which 
circulates among the cafes of the capital between the 
hour of the aperitif and dinner. 

Therefore when Fasque came out one evening with an 
article entitled, “Do Parrots Think?” the mere change 
in the headline attracted almost as much attention as a 
revolution. The article itself, purported to be the story 
of a parrot discovered in Avignon by a newsboy con¬ 
valescing from a street accident, and told how the 
gamin and the bird, both lame, had learned to sympa¬ 
thize with and understand each other almost as if they 

belonged to the same species. 

273 


274 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“And now comes a curious thing,” the writer con¬ 
tinued. “Coco, as the parrot is called, talks like any 
other of his kind, and is an incomparable mimic be¬ 
sides. He can take off the voice and even the manner 
of Le Squelette, his master, in a way which would 
ensure him a long run at any vaudeville house, while 
his imitation of such sounds as the ticking of a clock 
and the squeaking of a door-hinge is almost uncanny in 
its perfection. But Le Squelette, who claims that he 
found his pet right after it had been wounded by a 
fall—presumably in an attempt to escape from a cage 
hanging at a great distance from the ground, say in a 
tower—Le Squelette declares that all this is merely 
the superficial Coco. Deep down, he affirms, the bird 
has a serious purpose, a conscience—intelligence, in 
fine. 

“ ‘His ain’t no common parrot talk,’ says the boy. 
‘He knows what he is talkin’ about. An’ he’s got 
somethin’ on his mind he’s tryin’ to tell me. W’en I 
first got ’im he’d only squawk and jabber nonsense. 
But now’s we’re acquainted he imitates a woman 
screamin’ sometimes in a way ’at’s simply awful. An’ 
he keeps harpin’ on somethin’ ’bout a devilfish. If I 
asks ’im w’at he means he’ll just shake his head at 
me, as if it was too bad to tell. But every day he gets 
out a few more words, an’ by an’ by I espects to have 
his hist’ry all out of ’im, for him an’ me is gettin’ to 
be friends.’ 


BAITING THE TRAP 


275 


“Is it possible that the boy is right? That Coco 
has something on his conscience which he is anxious to 
divulge, and is being held back, not for lack of the 
power of expression but by a motive which he has in 
common with us—the natural reluctance to confess any 
connection, past or present, with something sinister? 
Certainly his gradually increasing vocabulary, quite 
apart from what he is being taught by his new owner, 
is curious. His latest remark is: 

“ ‘Ou ne faut qu’a baiser la bague / (I’ve only to 
kiss the ring.) 

“What can it mean? In the near future I hope to 
be able to relate yet other of Coco’s accomplishments 
to my readers, as the bird’s growing intimacy with the 
boy leads to an increased confidence between the two. 
Perhaps we are on the verge of an interesting dis¬ 
covery, of which the police—or I should say the Acad¬ 
emy of Sciences—might well take note.’ 

Upon reading this, many complained that Frasque 
was growing too fanciful and needed a vacation. 
Others shook their heads, declaring that there must 
be something back of it. That talk of a woman s 
screams hardly sounded like a joke, while the pre¬ 
tended mistake of naming the police instead of the 
Academy of Sciences had an unpleasant suggestiveness. 
But most people merely laughed, determined not to be 


276 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

taken in by what they considered a piece of deliberate 
mystification. 

A few days later, the following advertisement ap¬ 
peared in an obscure corner of the same journal: 

“For Sale—The famous thinking parrot, Coco. Call 
in person after eight p.m. Only purchasers who can 
promise bird good care .— Le Squelette, 115 bis, Rue 
Monge. 

“Some fakir is trying to take advantage of the 
publicity which the real Coco has received/’ said the 
wiseacres. 

But in a back room at the address named, where 
two men and a boy were grouped about a copy of the 
sheet, the ad was taken more seriously. 

“After what my old friend Frasque has done for us, 
it ought to bring something to light,” one of the men 
was saying. “His hint that the parrot was divulging 
something new every day was a master-stroke. Be¬ 
sides, I’ve an idea that the owner of the bird is fond 
of him. We’ll have a caller before the evening is over. 
What’s more,” he added whimsically, “I’ll be much 
surprised if he isn’t dressed like an electrician out of 
work.” 

Lepadou—for it was he who spoke—had come back 
to Paris and forced himself to take up the case where 
he had dropped it, notwithstanding his dreadful find 


BAITING THE TRAP 


277 


in the tower at Avignon. Official inquiries in regard 
to that incident were of course on foot, but he had 
succeeded in hushing them up—for the time being, at 
least. 

Outwardly he was not unlike the boyish Ferret of 
other days, and had he appeared in New York acquaint¬ 
ances would probably have hailed him with the con¬ 
ventional assurance that he hadn’t changed a bit. But 
they would have been wrong. It was no longer a mere 
desire to bring out the truth which moved him. His 
whole soul was seared with hatred, with a longing for 
revenge. The quiet of his manner, the smile that 
occasionally played about the corners of his lips, be¬ 
spoke but the deceptive quiet of a mine of high explo¬ 
sives and much resembled the glint of a ray of sunlight 
on the metal detonating cap. 

Having learned from Tardieu that Peters and the 
Grangers were still at the house on the boulevard St. 
Germain; that l’Estrange had been permitted to return 
to Rome, and that Julien Ferrard continued to languish 
in a cell pending some outcome of the slow-dragging 
police investigation, the detective had decided to begin 
at the beginning—to see what could be done to lift the 
shadows still surrounding the bal des Tapettes before 
inquiring further into subsequent and still darker 
events. 


2 7 8 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

Particularly did he examine the three pieces of the 
rmshicorde which Tardieu one day put into his hands. 

“What strikes you as most peculiar about this 
weapon?” he asked the judge. 

“IPs coming apart both at the point and at the hilt,” 
was the prompt answer. 

“Yes, that’s unusual enough. But what is most sug¬ 
gestive to me is the extreme narrowness of the blade.” 

“Suggestive of what?” 

“Of the possibility that both you and Balai have 
let yourselves fall into an error. But never mind that, 
as I may be wrong. Where is the assailant’s costume?” 

“Here.” The judge took the remnants of the squid 
mask from a drawer and flung them upon the table— 
for he was sitting in his cabinet d’instruction —and had 
all the exhibits at hand. 

Lepadou remarked upon the completeness of the 
disguise, then exclaimed: 

“Good! Just as I thought. Did you notice these 
pieces of metal?” 

He pointed to a very simple frame-work which 
seemed to have acted as a nucleus for the strengthen¬ 
ing cords running the length of the frail rubber ten¬ 
tacles. 

“I noticed them, of course,” said the judge. 


BAITING THE TRAP 


279 

“Of course. Yet neither you nor the chief nor any 
of your experts saw anything significant about them.” 

“Do you?” 

“The arrangement, or what is left of it, strikes me 
as—but let’s go take a look at the building where the 
ball was held.” 

It being still afternoon, the Bouiller was deserted 
save for a few employees engaged in cleaning up for 
the regular night’s custom. Lepadou was shown the 
exact spot where Rougette Picot had fallen; the posi¬ 
tion of the no-longer existent pavilion, and of the ante¬ 
room where the enquete had been held. 

“How was the place lighted?” he asked. 

Tardieu was able to give only a general description 
of the arrangement of the various bulbs and globes. 
He knew nothing about the wiring save that the col¬ 
ored lights seemed to have been on a circuit of their 
own. Lepadou ordered a ladder, and spent considerable 
time crawling from one place to another on the open 
beam-work. 

“If I’d only been here!” he sighed as he descended, 
brushing the dust from his clothes. “Do you know 
who had charge of the illumination? I mean the man 
who superintended the placing of the extra lights which 
were used for the occasion?” 

The judge did not, but inquiry of the management 


280 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

revealed the fact that the work had been done by a 
contractor in a small way known as Amic Sautel, who 
got the job by largely underbidding all competitors. 

Several days were wasted in a vain attempt to locate 
Sautel. Men were found who knew him, but he had 
closed up his place of business and where he lived no¬ 
body seemed able to say. Finally, however, an indi¬ 
vidual was located who declared that he had helped 
Sautel on the bal des Tapettes job. There was, he said, 
nothing funny or extraordinary about it so far as he 
had noticed, but he would know Sautel anywhere as 
he was an old man with a closely cropped white beard, 
remarkably nimble when climbing a pole or working 
on a scaffolding, but noticeably feeble when walking 
on the ground with no necessity for exerting his wan¬ 
ing strength. Lepadou took his informant (a common 
lineman) into his following at liberal wages, and from 
that moment refused to stir without him. 

His next move was to make the acquaintance of the 
director of the Jardin des Plantes and to become famil¬ 
iar with all the details of its famous museum—a large 
building of red and yellow brick dedicated to the im¬ 
mortal Buffon. One would have said that he was 
preparing a treatise, so carefully did he go over the 
building, studying a great collection of stuffed birds 
which had recently been installed. The exhibits were 


BAITING THE TRAP 


281 


so arranged as to display the natural habits and en¬ 
vironment of the various species, and at his suggestion 
a number of cages were added containing living speci¬ 
mens. Among these, Coco, the thinking parrot, shortly 
found a place. 

That day Le Squelette’s advertisement was pub¬ 
lished. The early part of it had been spent by the 
tenants of the rue Monge apartment in boring holes 
in a pair of folding doors which separated their back 
room from the reception parlor—holes scarcely visible 
on the front side, yet widening so as to command a 
clear view from the other. With the coming of night¬ 
fall, Lepadou and his house-mates, with Tardieu and 
the linemen for guests, sat down to wait. Any time 
after eight o’clock an answer to the advertisement 
might be expected. 

“But what makes you think he’ll come disguised as 
Sautel?” asked the judge. 

“Because,” answered Lepadou, “it’s a good disguise 
—and one he won’t suspect we’ve ever heard of. Sque- 
lette, what are you doing?” 

“Boss,” responded the urchin, who had been employ¬ 
ing the interval in carefully bandaging his left hand 
with a rather dirty rag, “didn’t yeh tell me I was to 
play wid dis gent who’s cornin’ here after de bird?” 

“Yes, but what’s the bandage for?” 


282 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“It's an idea, dat’s all. If I’m goin’ to play ’im I’ve 
got to have somethin’ to play ’im withy 

That was all he would divulge, and slowly the min¬ 
utes from eight to nine dragged themselves along. 
Then there was a ring. Lepadou and his companions 
placed themselves behind the spy-holes. Le Squelette, 
assuming all the physical infirmities with which Fras- 
que in his article had seen fit to endow him, made for 
the front door. 

“Come awn in,” he was heard to say. “I mustn’t 
stand talkin’ out here, mister. De doctor t’inks I ain’t 
well yet, an’ I dasn’t run no risk from de night air.” 

Somewhat reluctantly the caller entered. He was 
a man apparently beyond middle age, who moved 
slowly and wore a well-trimmed beard, noticeably gray. 

“It’s him!” whispered the lineman excitedly, draw¬ 
ing back from his post of observation and touching his 
employer’s elbow. “It’s Amic Sautel. Now what 
the-” 

The detective nodded without any show of sur¬ 
prise. Sautel, on the other side of the door, refused a 
chair. 

“I’ve come to make you an offer for your bird,” he 
began. “That is, if he’s the same Coco I’ve been 
readin’ about in the papers. But what’s the matter? 
Are you sick?” 



BAITING THE TRAP 


283 


“Didn’t you read dat I was hoit?” 

“Oh, yes, in an automobile accident. I’ve got a 
little boy who is sick, too. I want the parrot for 
him to play with. But it’s got to be genuine and no 
fake. Let’s see him.” 

“See Coco?” 

“Of course—and tell me what you want for him. 
Look here, ain’t you bright?” 

Sautel was seen to cast a suspicious look about the 
room, but Le Squelette broke into uproarious laughter. 

“Yer as good as de doctor.” 

“The doctor?” 

“Yeh. De doc says to me, says he: ‘Boy, de auto¬ 
mobile what hit yeh in de head must a cracked some 
of de works, an’ I ain’t sure yet but what it might 
better have cracked yeh altogether. Lucky for you, 
yeh seem cheerful about it. But I wish yeh’d stow dat 
funny laugh. It makes me t’ink of de cracklin’ ob 
thorns under a pot.’ Dat’s what he says. An’ now 
you goes an’ says de same t’ing. I ain't bright, an’ I 
ain’t never goin’ to be bright. Dat’s why I loses me 
job an’ hasn’t got nothin’ but dis here parrot to live 
on besides a little I’d saved up, and dat’s most gone.” 

“So, you’ve lost your job?” 

The visitor sat down, as if he had found a subject 
which interested him. 


284 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“That’s too bad. The paper didn’t say anything 
about your bein’ cracked—but of course it wouldn't. 
What did you used to do? And how do you come to 
be livin’ in as nice a place as this? You can’t be 
alone.” 

“Course not!” The gamin laughed again. “Course 
I don’t live alone. A couple of nice ladies saw dat piece 
in de paper an’ went an’ found out from de man what 
wrote it where I was. Den they hunted me up an’ 
brought me here to be charitable with. I’ll call ’em an’ 
you can see-” 

“No, don’t bother. I want to talk to you. About 
the parrot, now, and your job?” 

“I was workin’ in Avignon,” declared Le Squelelte, 
with a sudden air of importance so well assumed that 
Lepadou, watching and listening, was moved to grin 
in spite of his troubles. “An’ I was workin’,” con¬ 
tinued the boy, “for the greatest ’tective in de world. 
But I ain’t goin’ to tell yeh his name, ’cause if I did 
he might come an’ make it worse for me. He was goin’ 
to take me back to ’Merica wid him. But I runned 
away after I got out of de hospital, an’ didn’t talk to 
most nobody till dat writin’ man saw me wit de bird 
out in the park an’ got me to show him off. It’s all 
true, w’at he says in de paper, only he ain’t got it half 
down. But I didn’t want to say no more for fear my 



BAITING THE TRAP 285 

old boss’d read it an’ git sore an’ come an’ beat me 
for not bein’ bright no more. He might make me work 
again, too, an’ I don’t want to work now I can live 
here doin’ nothin’.” 

“But you did want to keep the parrot?” 

“Not much I didn’t. He went bad and bit me— 
after I’d stolen ’im with me out of de hospital.” 

Le Squelette held up his bandaged hand in proof— 
and again Lepadou was forced to admire from his 
hiding-place. If this was the boy when he wasn’t 
bright, he felt that he’d hate to run counter to him 
when he was. 

“He went bad,” continued the supposed idiot, “an’ 
begun to talk things what made me afraid of ’im. So 
I says to myself, I’ll advertise an’ sell ’im wit’out sayin’ 
nothin’ to the ladies, who’ll be glad to get rid of ’im 
anyway. An’ I ain’t let either of ’em see de paper I 
put de notice in, for fear dey’d t’ink it wasn’t right to 
sell somet’in’ I’d found an’ hadn’t bought and paid for. 
Dey’s awful particular ’bout such things. But-” 

“Never mind. Bring this bird out and I’ll pay you 
a good price for him—enough to buy lots of candy, if 
that’s what you like.” 

“Candy? You bet!” 

“Well,” cried the man, growing impatient. “What 
do you stand there grinning for? Bring me the bird.” 

The boy answered with a roar of amusement. 



286 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“How kin I?” he choked. “Bring him out—dat’s 
a good one! You’re some joker, mister. Only go 
easy wid me. My head is beginnin’ to hurt an’ I’m 
afraid I’m goin’ to fall down, as I do sometimes these 
days, because de room keeps goin’ ’round an’ ’round. 
Do you notice it?” 

“No; why can’t you bring him out? Come, boy! 
Don’t get excited. See! Here’s some money I’ve 
brought you. Bright new money. Let’s have a talk 
with the pretty bird, and then I’ll take him away where 
he can’t hurt you any more.” 

“Him hurt me? ” Le Squelette’s voice grew indig¬ 
nant. “I’d like to see him hurt anybody now. He’s 
in jail.” 

“Jail?” 

“Yeh, in de bird jail. A man was in dis afternoon. 
Said he couldn’t wait till eight an’ took de chance of 
not findin’ me home.” 

“Yes, yes. What did he say?” 

“He told me dat Coco was a lit’rary as well as a 
ornigh-logical curios’ty now, an’ dat dey wanted ’im to 
take an’ lock up an’ show ’im off. Here’s de money 
he give me w’en I give ’im de bird.” 

Le Squelette showed a considerable roll of bills. The 
stranger sprang to his feet. * 

“What man was it, boy?” he demanded, controlling 


BAITING THE TRAP 287 

himself with an effort. “Think! He was from some 
museum, wasn’t he?” 

“Yeh, a museum is w’at he said.” 

“But what museum? They don’t lock birds up very 
carefully in all museums, and he might get loose and 
come and bite you again. Besides, I shouldn’t be sur¬ 
prised from what I hear about him if Coco wasn’t a 
bird at all, but something worse—do you know what 
I mean?” 

“Do I?” The boy shrank back into a corner, hold¬ 
ing his hands before his face in an attitude of sudden 
fright. “How did you guess it? Of course he ain’t a 
bird, he’s a witch. An’ he’s gone to de big yellow an’ 
red brick buildin’ in de gardens right near here. De 
man told me all about it, ’cause he thought I wanted to 
be sure Coco was goin’ to be took good care of.” 

“He won’t be,” declared the other. “He’ll get out. 
Have you got all the money that was promised you? 
Maybe if you was to tell them that I was the original 
owner they’d send him back. You had no right to 
sell him, now had you, when he wasn’t your own?” 

“Dat’s all right. I told all dat to de man who 
bought him, an’ he says if de real owner turns up he 
can come to de museum. But I guess de only way for 
him to get de bird back would be to steal him, for dey 
sets a lot of store by Coco, them scientific fellows does.” 


288 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

Sautel, as if moved by a sudden suggestion, handed 
the boy five francs and said he was sorry that he’d 
come too late, but that after all the parrot didn’t 
matter. He could buy some other pet for his own 
little boy—one that wasn’t so savage. 

“In fact, I’ve had a narrow escape in not getting 
him this devil who bites,” he added at parting. “You’ve 
been frank and told me, when you might have kept it 
to yourself. That’s what the five francs is for. But 
if you don’t want things to come and bite you in your 
sleep, you won’t say a word to anybody about my hav¬ 
ing been here. I’m something of a witch myself.” 

With that, he left. And as he went, a figure detached 
itself from the shadows on the other side of the street 
and followed silently in his wake. 


CHAPTER XV 


WITHIN THE TENTACLES 

The night-watchman at the Natural History Mu¬ 
seum in the Jardin des Plantes had his instructions. 
He was not to be unsociable if a stranger should hap¬ 
pen along and try to engage him in conversation. In¬ 
deed, it had been impressed upon him that such a 
stranger’s whims were to be humored. But on the night 
of Le Squelette’s interview with the would-be parrot 
buyer, no tempter appeared to offer the watchman so 
much as a glass of beer. 

At about eleven o’clock of the night following, how¬ 
ever, as he was pacing up and down before the mu¬ 
seum’s front entrance, a figure came staggering down 
the rue de Buffon, halted, and in a voice tremulous 
with hiccoughs demanded to know the hour. The 
stranger was in evening dress, half concealed by an 
automobile overcoat, and wore a visored cap and gog¬ 
gles which amounted practically to a mask. When his 
question had been politely answered, he drew out an 
289 


290 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

enormous roll of bills and tried to give his informant 
a sum suggesting one of those absurdly generous tips 
with which inexperienced American tourists not infre¬ 
quently paralyze the friendly service of the continent. 

The watchman, forgetting his instructions and be¬ 
lieving for a moment that he had to do with a genuine 
case of drunkenness, refused the money with some heat, 
declaring that he wasn’t in the habit of being paid for 
simple courtesies even when they were rendered to 
those who ought to be in bed and asleep instead of 
wandering about the streets making fools of them¬ 
selves. But as the stranger insisted, protesting that 
no offense was meant and hinting that the only way 
to wipe out the misunderstanding now was for the two 
of them to set forth together in search of liquid refresh¬ 
ment, the watchman suddenly remembered orders and 
permitted his objections to be overcome. 

The man in goggles, marching ahead, turned towards 
a maze of dimly lighted alleys. 

“Bully wine-shop arou’ here shommers,” he threw 
over his shoulder in thick-tongued French. “Don’ 
know where ’sh gone, b’ you ’n me ’sh got to find it.” 

“He’s leading me to where he thinks I’ll be tempted 
to rob him,” reflected the watchman. “And then, 
when I’ve got the swag, he thinks I’ll make myself 
scarce for the rest of the night.” 


WITHIN THE TENTACLES 291 

It looked like a funny thing to do, but he had been 
told to help carry out any plans the fellow might seem 
to have. So he stepped up close, prepared to put this 
program into execution. Immediately the other 
whirled around, his drunkenness gone as if by magic. 
That was all the watchman knew until he woke up in 
a hospital the next morning and was told by the nurse 
in charge that he had suffered a severe concussion of 
the brain and mustn’t talk. 

While this little drama was being enacted in the 
streets, a number of men were within the museum wait¬ 
ing to see what might happen there. They were 
Lepadou, Tardieu, Balai, Le Squelette and a couple of 
inspectors. Each was behind some sort of screen in the 
grande salle, keeping watch without lights, conversa¬ 
tion or even the solace of tobacco; and as the hours 
slipped by their vigil seemed to take on an eternal char¬ 
acter, as such vigils sometimes do. 

In the salle itself nothing at first sight appeared to 
have been changed, though the public which had 
thronged the broad floor-space only a few hours before, 
admiring the feathered occupants of the gilded cages or 
gaping in front of the exhibition-cases filled with speci¬ 
mens of the taxidermist’s art, would doubtless have 
found it all strange and uncanny in such a ghostly 


2 Q2 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

sort of illumination as that which stole in through the 
windows from the street. 

They would have noted, too, upon closer inspection, 
that at least one considerable exhibit had been added 
since the closing hour. It was an aquarium tank oc¬ 
cupying the very center of the huge, lofty-ceilinged 
apartment. And its liquid contents, catching the 
gleam of the distant street-lamps, sparkled uneasily, as 
if the water had not yet had time to sink to rest—or 
perhaps was slightly stirred now and then by some 
slumbering acquatic creature, half dormant, half in¬ 
clined to awaken thoroughly and spring upon some bit 
of real or imagined prey. 

Shortly after midnight there was a sound to be heard 
at one of the entrance doors, and a few seconds later 
the door swung open and closed again. That was all. 
Silence and emptiness seemed once more to have set¬ 
tled down over the breathless interior of the great 
museum. 

Then a parrot spoke from a cage hanging high over¬ 
head: 

“Prenez garde! Le Shekel Le S&che! Ale!” 

The last syllable was a shrill and piercing scream, 
so human that it seemed hardly possible that it could 
have proceeded from the throat of a bird. It woke up 
several ravens in a large wire pen in one corner, to 


WITHIN THE TENTACLES 


293 


croak a confused fugue of indignant protests before 
fidgeting themselves back to repose. After that, silence 
once more for the space of several minutes, at the end 
of which the figure of a man emerged from the obscurity 
of the doorway and advanced slowly and cautiously 
towards the center of the room. 

He wore a cap and goggles, and was evidently look¬ 
ing for something in particular, for he groped his way 
from cage to cage, from case to case, peering within 
each and finally beginning to whistle softly, as if to 
himself. 

He was answered by the parrot, who gave voice to a 
soft, musical note followed by a flute-like burst of 
runs and arpeggios delivered with that incredible ac¬ 
curacy which certain gifted individuals of the species 
sometimes attain. 

“Coco!” called the man softly. “Coco!” 

“Ici — here . Le Sdche! Aie!” 

“Petite gamine!” the man chuckled. “What am I 
going to do with you? Hung up there as high as 
Haaman! You’be been talking too much. I hate to 
wring your neck, but I suppose I must. Anyway I’ll 
have to find a ladder and help you down.” 

It chanced that there was a ladder lying at that very 
moment near the aquarium tank. The intruder, feel¬ 
ing his way, finally caught sight of it. But as he 


294 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

stooped, something stirred within the tank and a long, 
tentacle-like thing slipped over the edge, fastening itself 
about his neck with a deadly tenacity which nothing 
could shake off. 

A shriek, this time undeniably human, cut through 
the silence, followed by confused groans, curses, and 
the sounds of a man fighting desperately for his life. 
But nothing sufficed to retard the gray, almost shape¬ 
less bulk which was lifting itself from the water and 
wrapping its limbs with ever more crushing force about 
its victim. 

“It’s a nightmare!” screamed the man. “It's the 
devil in my own heart. I must wake up. No, no! It’s 
real. Mon dieu! I must kill it. I-” 

The monster in the tank was now entirely out upon 
the floor, and the other, unable any longer to maintain 
his balance with all those snaky arms writhing about 
him, slipped and fell at the very moment when he was 
attempting to draw a knife. There was the sharp click 
of metal upon metal, then another. He lay on his back, 
helpless, both his hands and his feet locked together 
with fetters which had come as if by miracle out of 
nowhere. 

The aquatic creature released its hold. In that grim 
twilight it had every appearance of a giant squid. But 
it was assuming an upright position and removing— 



WITHIN THE TENTACLES 295 

first its helmet-like head, then its tentacles. At the 
same moment the salle was flooded with electric light, 
revealing Forgeron standing in the midst of a col¬ 
lapsed rubber diving-suit and wiping the perspiration 
from his forehead with a clean white handkerchief. 

“Good thing you left the job to me,” he remarked 
to Lepadou, who now stepped forward. “You’d never 
have kept from stranglin’ him, as I wanted to myself 
when once I got my hands on the beast.” 

The beast—or more properly the man in fetters— 
had ceased both his cries and struggles. But now, 
catching sight of the steel bands which showed that his 
enemy had been as little a dream as he had been a 
devilfish, he broke out in a torrent of imprecations. 
They were no longer the words of one in terror, but the 
half-articulate mouthings of a fit of madness. He beat 
himself with his manacled fists, raised himself to a sit¬ 
ting posture, then threw his whole body violently back 
upon the floor, while a line of white foam gathered 
about his lips. 

“I killed them all,” he repeated thickly. “Rougette, 
Leontine, Clara Hope! Oh, if Lepadou could only 
have seen what I did to the last one!” 

Forgeron, Balai and Tardieu were forced to unite 
their efforts to hold back the detective, who at the 
mention of Clara had tried to fling himself bodily upon 


296 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

the prisoner. But gradually the latter’s fit subsided, 
and a quiet voice rose upon the stillness: 

“M’sieu le chef, if you are a gentleman you will take 
this chaplet de Saint Frangois off of my wrists. The 
idea of handcuffing me! What do you think I am? A 
common thief?” 

His intonation as he repeated this old euphemism for 
what an Englishman would have called ‘The derbies,” 
was cold and ironical. Lepadou regained his self-con¬ 
trol with a sudden drawing back of the shoulders, and 
answered in the same tone: 

“In due time, Marie. But if you’ve got anything 
to say you might as well say it where you are. I sup¬ 
pose you’re ready to admit that you are Marie? And 
also Le Caillou, the electrician who arranged the wiring 
for the bal des Tapettes, the-” 

“Oh, willingly, and a good many more. The driver 
of a certain limousine at Rognerons, for instance.” 

“Stick to the Rougette Picot case. You might as 
well make a clean breast of your motive, now that the 
jig is up.” 

“What makes you think so? Don’t you remember 
the Boncoeur affair? I suppose you thought the jig was 
up then.” 

“I remember. But it really is, this time. Are you 
going to come through?” 



WITHIN THE TENTACLES 297 

“Why not? If I could explain it to you I would. 
But it’s so difficult to make a normal man understand 
anything out of the ordinary, full as history is of the 
Great Exceptions. Did you ever hear of a surgeon 
known as Dr. Bennet?” 

“There was a Dr. Bennet, an American with the 
Foreign Legion during the war,” broke in chief Balai. 
“A perfectly wonderful physician.” 

“That’s the man, only his real name wasn’t Bennet 
and he wasn’t especially devoted to the American cause 
—or any other cause, for that matter, excepting that of 
science. Bennet was my first alias. I adopted it be¬ 
cause I’d even then begun to suspect that I was a little 
—well, peculiar. I made a reputation during the war, 
and it wasn’t my fault that the supply of anesthetics 
ran short. But that’s how I learned my peculiarity— 
that the sight of suffering gave me pleasure.” 

“An insane man!” gasped Balai, drawing farther 
away. 

“Pardon, m’sieu le chef, but insanity is only a word. 
You enjoy seeing Ophelia brought in dead on the stage. 
I prefer to see her die in reality. The spectacle gratifies 
the same instinct in each of us, only yours is weaker. 
What was the Marquis de Sade, Caligula, Nero, Atilla 
—what were they all driving at do you suppose? Did 
you never throw stones at a frog when you were a boy 


298 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

for the sense of power and superiority it gave you? 
Didn’t we once burn witches in my little town of Salem, 
Mass.? It’s in my blood. My grandfather was a 
vivisectionist. I am a great surgeon. Lepadou, here, 
calls me The Squid, but that didn’t prevent him from 
frightening me into a fit. I tell you, cruelty is the 
oldest amusement of the race. Now when I killed 
Clara Hope-” 

“You did not kill Clara Hopei” 

Everybody started, and all heads turned as a woman, 
stepping out from behind a group of mounted flamin¬ 
goes, advanced towards the prisoner. 

“Look at me,” she continued. “I am Clara Hope, 
and I am wearing the same kind of roses that I wore 
that night in the tower. Look close! Don’t you recog¬ 
nize me, Peters?” 

“No, no! You can’t be.” 

“And you are not Peters?” 

“Yes, I am Peters, if that is any good to you. But 
I saw Clara Hope lying dead at the bottom of the 
shaft.” 

“It was rather dark, that night in the tower,” said 
Clara, coldly. “You had only a lantern. What you 
saw was a woman wearing a veil and a bunch of roses. 
When you held up your lantern the light shone in your 



WITHIN THE TENTACLES 299 

face. She saw her worst fears realized—and jumped.” 

“If it wasn’t Clara Hope, who was it?” 

“Silva Jonquille.” 

“Well, well!” The Squid looked thoughtfully down 
at his manacled hands. “I planned to add her to my 
collection, but somehow I always backed out when the 
pinch came. I don’t know why, but-” 

“I can tell you,” Clara put in. “She was your 
sister.” 

“Impossible! I never saw my sister after she was a 
little girl, but—no, no! It can’t be.” 

“Nevertheless, it is. I found my way down to her 
after you had left. She was still able to speak, and 
she told me how she had recognized you. Tear his dis¬ 
guise off, somebody, and make the acquaintance of 
Dr. Marx.” 

Willing hands complied, and there was revealed a 
smooth-shaven face and a closely-cropped head of 
bright red hair. 

“I should have known!” muttered the accused, pay¬ 
ing no attention to this indignity. “I hadn’t seen her 
since she was a child, but she had that skill in using 
the hands which runs in our family. We are all born 
surgeons. Told me once, too, that she was fond of 
parrots—another hereditary trait. I see now why I 
couldn’t bear to stay in the tower, even long enough 



300 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

to bury her. And when I went back and couldn’t find 
the body—well, I’ve been rather rattled and careless 
of what I did ever since. 

“But you needn’t look so triumphant, Lepadou. The 
Squid wasn’t made to be your meat. You’ll never solve 
this mystery. I’ve told you that I killed them all, 
and yet you know that the Picot woman was stabbed 
by her dancing-partner— while I was sitting by Silva’s 
side in a pavilion box. How are you going to get 
around that?” 

As he put the question, he lifted his hands to his lips 
and bit savagely at a jewel which sparkled on one of 
his fingers. The next instant he had fallen forward on 
the floor. 

“He had only to kiss the ring,” said Lepadou, re¬ 
peating a saying—no longer mysterious—of the parrot. 
“Look! The bezel is on a hinge—a little poison-box, 
made, I should say, in the time of the Borgias. But 
it’s empty now. Shall we go?” 


CHAPTER XVI 


ALL JOURNEYS END 

An Extract from the Notebook of Judge Tardieu 

The Squid’s confession was far from ending the 
Rougette Picot case, so far as I was concerned, for 
not only was it contradicted by the evidence against 
the girl’s dancing-partner but there remained to my 
mind something simply preposterous in his claim that 
he had sat with Silva Jonquille during the ball. He 
might be Peters, I reasoned—though for the life of me 
I couldn’t see how—but to admit that he could also be 
l’Estrange was altogether too much. 

If I ever write my memoirs I shall have to confess 
that all my life I’ve been more or less a prisoner to my 
likes and dislikes. And if this be disgraceful in a 
magistrate, why then I stand disgraced and care 
very little who knows it. Certainly, too, I proved to 
be strangely right even in the very act of being 
wrong. 

As to The Squid’s other alleged impersonations, they 
301 


302 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

seemed less incredible. Dr. Bennet, Marie, Le Caillou, 
Sautel—they had moved in widely different circles. 
But hadn’t l’Estrange on the very day of Lepadou’s 
arrival sent Peters into the studio to be questioned— 
just a few minutes after he himself had left it? Could 
it be that both were characters created by the same 
actor? 

“It’s impossible,” I said to Lepadou—or McClue as 
perhaps I should begin to call him—as we left the 
museum together. “He’ll be here in a few days to show 
us how absurd the supposition is.” 

“Who, l’Estrange? I’m going to his place right now. 
Send for everybody concerned, will you? It can be 
settled tonight.” 

I despatched a couple of agents in response to his 
request, and we continued our way towards the fau¬ 
bourg St. Germain on foot, the detective engaging 
Balai in a heated discussion concerning the effective¬ 
ness of disguise. 

“It’s never been of much use in the Department,” 
the chief contended. 

To which McClue replied: 

“That’s because policemen are not sufficiently clever. 
They aren’t paid to be. But every day disguises are 
used against them—otherwise there wouldn’t remain 
so many undetected crimes.” 


30 3 


ALL JOURNEYS END 

And he continued by outlining a system of gymnas¬ 
tics of his own, whereby he claimed to have acquired 
an almost perfect control of the facial muscles and to 
a great extent of all other superficial characteristics 
which commonly pass as the index of identity. 

“But you don’t admit,” I suggested, drawing him 
aside, “that l’Estrange could have fooled you by trying 
to pass himself off as the butler?” 

“He tried to fool me, certainly,” was the astonish¬ 
ing rejoinder. “But I recognized him by the lobes of 
his ears—a little detail which he had n’t had time to 
alter.” 

“You might as well say he was Ferrard, and be done 
with it.” 

“No, but he was undoubtedly the author of the crime 
known as 'the phantom-dagger suicide,’ which you’ve 
told me Miss Jonquille was overheard to mention. It 
wasn’t a suicide, and l’Estrange himself sent her the 
writing-desk with the secret drawer which she sup¬ 
posed came from her old lover. That’s how he was 
able to get hold of the misericorde when he wanted it. 
As for Peters —see if we find him at the house to¬ 
night” 

Evidently no aid or comfort was to be had from Mc- 
Clue, and yet I continued to hug my illusion—depend- 


304 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

ing chiefly now upon Clara’s wrist watch for Peters, 
and upon blind faith for l’Estrange. And essentially 
I was right, as I’ve said, though heaven knows I was 
mistaken enough in detail and little prepared for the 
surprises which the night still had in store. 

Pa Granger let us in, much astonished to see us at 
such an hour. With Miss Hope, Forgeron and Le 
Squelette (with his parrot) following at our heels, we 
were a company calculated to awaken astonishment at 
any time. But nobody had gone to bed and we found 
Mrs. Granger sitting in the studio with Millie on 
the floor at her feet—the girl asleep like a child, 
her head in her mother’s lap. The ornamental logs 
in the big fireplace had been lighted, no doubt less 
for warmth than for cheerfulness, for Peters had in¬ 
deed disappeared and it was easy to see that the 
stoical courage even of Mrs. Granger was nearing an 
end. 

She started as she saw us enter, then settled back 
with a look of relief. Even to me, who knew that the 
evil spirit which—no matter how many forms it might 
or might not have assumed—had certainly been haunt¬ 
ing that house would never again return—even to me 
the place seemed filled with unnatural presences. One 
doesn’t believe in ghosts. Of course not. Nevertheless 
one is sensitive to unexpected sights and sounds in sur- 


ALL JOURNEYS END 305 

roundings where ghosts, if there were such things, 
would have a particular right to be. 

But it was necessary for me to think of my duties, 
and as soon as my clerk arrived I established myself 
behind a table and assumed that cloak of omniscient 
dignity with which custom requires a magistrate to 
cover his human frailty before presuming to inquire 
into the delinquencies of his fellow beings. 

“We will begin with the bal des Tapettes,” I an¬ 
nounced. “A man who went by many names has con¬ 
fessed to murdering various women to gratify a sort 
of mania. But that doesn’t help us in the case of 
Rougette Picot, since we’re all agreed that she was 
stabbed by her dancing-partner.” 

“Pardon me, Your Honor,” said McClue, who with 
Balai was now seated at my table. “But if we all 
agree, what’s in question?” 

“Why, his identity. The chief thinks it was Ferrard. 
What do you say?” 

“That I’d like to hear his reasons for thinking so.” 

Balai needed no second invitation. 

“In the first place,” he said, “Ferrard, as the Jon- 
quille woman’s friend, had easy access to the tniseri - 
corde. And in the second, the hilt was found in his 
possession.” 


3 o6 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“And in the third ,” supplemented the detective, “I 
suppose you think he turned himself into the devilfish 
that appeared in the tableau and the dance?” 

“Certainly. It was no more difficult for him to 
crawl into a costume than it was for Forger on to crawl 
into one tonight.” 

McClue shook his head. 

“If you and the judge had examined the costume 
found at the Bouiller—examined it carefully, that is— 
you’d have seen that it could never have contained 
even a boy, much less a man.” 

“Then what did it contain?” I asked in astonish¬ 
ment. 

“Nothing, Judge.” 

“Nothing?” 

“No; it was a dummy. You haven’t kept up with 
the progress of science, I’m afraid, and so have no idea 
of the extreme simplicity of modern mechanism. If it 
had been one of those complicated dancing dolls of 
the Middle-Ages, you’d have recognized it at once. 
But an automaton operated by wireless had nothing, 
at least in the wreck of it, even to suggest machinery 
either to you or the chief. So you searched for the 
woman’s dancing-partner. I hunted for the traces of 
the Lyden jars and other apparatus for the generation 
of Hertzian waves that had been hidden behind the 


ALL JOURNEYS END 


307 


decorations of the Bouiller rafters. I found only 
brackets and screw-holes, but their arrangement was 
conclusive.” 

So that was why he had been so unaccountably in¬ 
terested in electricity and electricians! But for a mo¬ 
ment I couldn’t credit his deductions. Of course I 
had known that there was such a thing as the wireless 
transmission of energy, and that it was allied to wire¬ 
less telegraphy and to radio. But I’d had no concep¬ 
tion of its practical importance, notwithstanding the 
number of articles which have appeared in the news¬ 
papers describing dirigible torpedoes and other con¬ 
trivances set in motion and controlled from a distance. 
It is truly amazing, the slight amount of attention 
which one pays to subjects in which one is not par¬ 
ticularly interested. 

McClue, nettled I dare say by our first incredulity, 
rubbed in his lesson until I shall never be able to for^ 
get that wireless power acts by exciting electro-magnets 
(if I have it right) much as nerve force excites and 
contracts our muscles; and that these magnets, so 
simple looking in themselves, are protected in some 
way from all ether waves excepting those of a certain 
length. This enables the operator to single them out 
as easily as the brain of the pianist singles out the dif¬ 
ferent fingers of the hand. But the purely technical 


308 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

details are beyond me. When language begins to 
bristle with words like inductances and capacities I 
am affected much as a layman, I imagine, is affected 
by our legal jargon. 

“The dummy squid made very few motions from all 
accounts,” McClue went on, returning finally to the 
vernacular. “It could easily have been manipulated 
by half a dozen levers fastened under the edge of a 
box-seat in the pavilion. But the operator had time 
to remove them and to recover most of his automaton 
before you gentlemen finished your preliminary ex¬ 
amination of the victim’s body. 

“Rougette,” he continued, “must have known that 
she was dancing with a mechanism. But she took 
great pains to pass it off as an actual person—by talk¬ 
ing to it. From her reported remarks I should judge 
that she had entered into a wager that she would 
make Miss Jonquille think it was Ferrard. That’s 
why she used the word ’ bet / which was reported by 
so many of the witnesses. She couldn’t have reckoned 
on being overheard; but being a person of little inven¬ 
tion, when she wanted to be seen talking she naturally 
spoke of the thing which was uppermost in her mind.” 

“You haven’t explained the knife-wound,” objected 
Balai, clutching at the disappearing remnants of his 
prestige. 


ALL JOURNEYS END 3<>9 

“It was made ,” said McClue, “by the detached point 
of the misericorde shot by a spring from the dummy’s 
mouth. The rest of the blade was dropped on the floor 
to give you a clue, and the hilt was returned to Silva’s 
apartment so that our criminal could enjoy the volup¬ 
tuous spectacle of a woman in imminent danger of be¬ 
ing guillotined. If the blade had happened to be wider 
the wound would have shown you that it had never 
been used.” 

This disposed of the Rougette Picot affair, and of 
Julien so far as that was concerned. But as I sat there 
surrounded by those four walls with their marvels of 
art smiling down upon me, I was totally dissatisfied. 
L’Estrange, so glibly spoken of as a criminal, had been 
my admiration, my friend, and I couldn’t imagine him 
as a gloating, homicidal maniac. 

Moreover Julien, though evidently free from the 
guilt of murder, certainly had something to explain. I 
had examined him several times since he had been 
taken into custody, and he had refused to answer ques¬ 
tions. What had he been up to while playing the 
vandal among l’Estrange’s pictures—he and Flamand 
Bee, who also chose to remain mute in the cell where he 
lay confined? 

At this point, the officers I had sent to bring in the 


3 io 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

prisoners appeared with their charges, and McClue as 
if reading my thought leaned towards me to observe: 

“What is worrying you, Judge, is the necessity in 
which you find yourself of thinking ill of a deceased 
genius. Do you usually find them so moral—here in 
France?” 

“Not all of them,” I admitted. “But l’Estrange’s 
talent was of a particularly kindly sort. It is impos¬ 
sible for me to understand how the author of such pic¬ 
tures-” 

“Wait. I think that Ferrard will have something 
to tell us as soon as he learns what has happened.” 

Bluntly the detective addressed the foremost pris¬ 
oner, informing him of Silva’s fate. Ferrard showed 
decent concern, not unmixed with relief. 

“Horrible!” he murmured. “But it might have been 
worse.” 

“Did you think she was guilty?” demanded Mc¬ 
Clue. 

“I was afraid so. That’s why I wouldn’t talk. Even 
yet I don’t understand what she was doing in Avignon.” 

“Nor do I, altogether.” 

As he said this McClue glanced in Clara Hope’s 
direction, and it suddenly occurred to me that it was 
the first time I had seen him so much as acknowledge 
her existence since her unexpected appearance beside 


ALL JOURNEYS END 311 

the aquarium tank. But he went on at once to ask 
Julien what he had been doing with turpentine to the 
pictures, and I had to give all my attention to the an¬ 
swer: 

“There was a quality in l’Estrange’s work which re¬ 
minded me of somebody else’s—a certain touch, an 
almost uncanny feeling and sympathy for the seamy 
side of things.” 

“You mean,” I cried, unable to contain myself, “that 
you thought it possible that they were not his? You 
were looking for a hidden signature?” 

“Exactly, m’sieu le juge. I got it into my head that 
l’Estrange might have employed what we call a 
‘ghost.’ ” 

“And did you find one?” 

“I found a signature—that of a man I knew in 
my youngest student days. He was expected to do 
great things, but suddenly took to absinthe and disap¬ 
peared—from my sight, at least. I haven’t met him 
for years.” 

“Look, Julien!” 

Flamand Bee, who had been huddling in the back¬ 
ground, now stepped forward, repeating a name which 
I dimly remembered having heard in the not-so-distant 
past which young men call the long ago. Ferrard 
grasped him by the hand. 


312 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“You! The man in the next cell to mine, and I never 
recognized you.” 

“I have changed, Julien. The 'green muse/ you 
know.” 

"But how did you ever get into such a fix?” 

"That devil of a l’Estrange discovered a little slip 
that I’d made, and drove me like a slave. Thank God, 
they tell me he is dead.” 

"And you hid your signature at the bottom of every 
canvas?” 

"Yes, for proof if the day should ever come. But I 
couldn’t fight. My ruin would have involved some¬ 
body besides myself.” 

"You did, though. Wasn’t it you that started to cut 
up the pictures?” 

"Yes, but I had no plan. The sight of my own 
works winning success after success for another man 
eventually drove me beyond myself, that was all. One 
night I came here intending to slash them all to pieces. 
I was prevented. But I managed afterwards to get at 
'The Struggle of Innocence.’ It had been copied as 
the stage-setting for the murder of a woman I loved. 
That was too much, even if she was only an artists’ 
model.” 

Such was Bee’s story. The sublime artist whom I 
had admired so much was in reality not my wealthy 


ALL JOURNEYS END 313 

acquaintance of the faubourg St. Germain, but this 
poor devil whom dissipation had already doomed. The 
knowledge came as a shock and at the same time as a 
relief—for after all it is better that genius should be 
miserable than infamous. 

But we were not there to ponder over the mysteries 
of art, and—as Balai soon took occasion to remind me 
—the finding of the hilt in Ferrard’s effects had yet to 
be accounted for. The young man himself protested 
complete ignorance. McClue’s explanation of the sep¬ 
arate use of the point stopped short at that. We needed 
to know every hand that had touched that fatal 
misericorde from the time it left its hiding-place. 

“It was probably,” suggested McClue, “returned to 
Miss Jonquille’s desk by PEstrange the morning after 
the ball. He paid her a call.” 

“On the other hand,” insisted Balai, “the prisoner, 
Ferrard, may have furnished l’Estrange with the blade 
and have kept the hilt in hopes of selling it. Some evi¬ 
dence besides his word will have to be produced to 
convince me that he wasn’t an accessory. 

“You might call La Haquenee,” said Clara Hope 
from her place beside Mrs. Granger. 

Balai, glad for an excuse to vent his feelings, turned 

upon her in a fury. 

“We might, indeed, if you hadn’t helped him to es¬ 
cape arrest.” 


3 i4 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

“Haquenee is out in the corridor,” she answered. 

“What?” 

“In the corridor.” 

The chief was fairly taken back, but managed to 
retort: 

“Then you’ve had him in hiding!” 

“Oh, no. He didn’t need my help for that. But he 
has been shadowing you all, and tonight he picked up 
my trail as I was entering the museum. We had a 
talk, and I advised him to keep in touch.” 

“You admit, at least, that you signaled him a warn¬ 
ing that dajr on the balcony?” 

“Of course I admit it, chief. I knew you were pre¬ 
paring to arrest him for the murder of Leontine—and 
he was innocent.” 

“How did you know he was innocent?” 

“Let me answer for her,” cut in McClue. “She 
knew it because he was seen while the real mur¬ 
derer is known to have been locked in Leontine’s 
room.” 

“He wasn’t locked in,” fumed the chief. “I showed 
you how the window bolts were worn, and even the 
hole he made in the putty as he drew the window to 
behind him on going out.” 

“You showed me the hole,” the detective agreed,” 
“and I pretended to accept your theory. But I was per- 


ALL JOURNEYS END 315 

fectly certain that the hole wasn’t there when you and 
Miss Hope broke into the room. You, possibly, might 
have overlooked such a thing, but it was out of the 
question for her to have done so. It was clear, too, 
that she hadn’t found it, otherwise she wouldn’t have 
eliminated the apache and helped him to escape. So 
whoever used an instrument on the putty was a later 
intruder. Leontine was strangled by The Squid dis- 
guished as Peters—and he crawled out behind your 
back.” 

It was a hard pill for Balai to swallow, and while he 
was gulping over it I summoned La Haquenee, who 
looked for all the world as if he had recently been 
crying. 

“Is that straight, what you told me about La 
Gadelle?” he demanded, turning at once to Clara. 

“Yes,” she answered, “and it’s something I want to 
explain more fully to the people here. Silva suffered 
sometimes from hereditary influences like her brother, 
and believed herself to be half mad. She knew that 
Haquenee, and maybe Julien, thought her a criminal. 
At times she even suspected herself. But her good 
impulses were stronger than the evil ones, and she 
wanted to save me from what she believed was a trap. 
So when I pretended to elope, she took one of my 
dresses—as on another occasion, Haquenee, I took 


316 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

one of hers—and followed me, and from Rognerons on 
succeeded in filling my place. 

“She didn’t yet know who Peters was, but she’d 
been watching him, strangely affected by a vague 
premonition of the truth. At Avignon it came to her 
with the first flash of his lantern, and she jumped to 
her death—as much from horror as through fear. She 
died in my arms after telling me everything, and I 
buried her. So nobody has any further need for con¬ 
cealment.” 

“Then I might as well confess,” broke in La 
Haquenee, the tears streaming down his face. “Leon- 
tine double-crossed me. You see it was her that took 
the dagger hilt from La Gadelle’s desk and gave it to 
me in the first place. L’Estrange, I guess, had planted 
it there after the ball, and Leontine got hold of it while 
La Gadelle had fallen asleep looking for it. Naturally 
Leontine gave it to me. But she stole it again and 
took to reporting to the boite, waiting her chance to 
put it where it would do the most harm. I suspected 
her and tried to find it, but couldn’t.” 

“No wonder,” interjected McClue. “Peters must 
have stolen it from Leontine before sending the chief 
the anonymous letter telling him where to look for it.” 

“I suppose so,” ventured the apache. “But La 
Gadelle had let me think it was she who had wet the 


ALL JOURNEYS END 317 

blade, and I was worried. When Miss Hope gave me 
the get-away sign I thought the hilt had been found 
on La Gadelle in spite of me. So I sneaks up under the 
vines, intending to wait and give Leontine what was 
coming to her. But if you’ll believe me; she was there 
already—as dead as a machabee. Of course I lit out 
then drawing the window shut after me with a round- 
pointed little toad-sticker I happened to be carrying.” 

“There’s your evidence, Balai,” I couldn’t help 
chuckling. “But before I perform a certain good deed 
which has now become my duty, there’s another detail 
that ought to be cleared up. On one occasion Miss 
Hope had an interview with Peters at the very hour 
when l’Estrange was calling on me. If both of these 
men were The Squid-” 

“It was a prepared alibi,” Clara interrupted. “We 
only thought that the two visits took place at the same 
time. My watch and all the clocks in the house had 
been turned back half an hour.” 

“But you compared your watch with one in a 
horlogerie the next day.” 

“He had set it right again—during the night.” 

“Very well,” said I. “Then I shall no longer put 
off my good deed.” 

In fact it was becoming difficult to endure the 
glances which Ferrard was casting in Millie Granger’s 
direction. The girl still slept, but the young man’s 


3 i8 THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 

impatience was burning like a flame in his eyes—as if 
to ask what right had I, an old man of the law, to in¬ 
terfere with youth and love? In nature’s scales, I was 
painfully aware, I counted for very little in comparison. 
So I hastened to sign the formal releases of all the 
prisoners, and announced. 

“M’sieu Ferrard, you are free . 91 

I didn’t speak above an ordinary tone. But my 
words, entering the ears which had been deaf to all our 
preceding mummery, were as effective as a trumpet 
blast. 

“Free!” 

Millie jumped to her feet, saw Julien and flung her¬ 
self into his arms. He should, I suppose, have shown 
a little reluctance—have manifested at least some ap¬ 
pearance of mourning for La Gadelle. But happiness 
is cruel. The lovers no longer had a thought for a soul 
but themselves. 

I nodded to Balai and the inspectors, and with them 
left the room, taking pains to see that Ma and Pa 
Granger, Bee, Forgeron, Haquenee, my clerk and Le 
Squelette followed in our wake. Yes, and that disturb¬ 
ingly sagacious bird, which, in learning to imitate the 
cries he had heard in the tower, still carried with him 
the echoes of one knows not how many undetected 
crimes. Only McClue and Clara Hope had any right 


ALL JOURNEYS END 319 

to remain behind with the dreamers. Even they, it 
appeared, had no certain title. For, looking back over 
my shoulder, I was surprised to see him take a step 
in my direction, only desisting when Clara’s hand fell 
upon his shoulder. 

He was, I learned afterwards, unable to understand 
how she could have left him in suspense all those days 
following his supposed discovery of her disfigured 
body. As a matter of fact, she knew nothing about his 
gruesome error, having failed to foresee that—thinking 
she had worn the shepherd’s plaid really taken by Silva 
—even The Ferret could lose his wits to the extent of 
making a mistaken identification. 

Since then I have received an invitation to The Fer¬ 
ret’s wedding. He and Clara are to be married at the 
American Embassy, and Paris will lose one of the few 
men who truly interest me—that is, unless some new 
and~startling crime comes to keep him with us a little 
longer. The wall of silence, by the way, which seemed 
at one time so inexplicable, proved to be nothing 
more than the doings of a traitorous employee in the 
McClue Agency in New York, who—in the pay of the 
enemy—intercepted the missing letters and telegrams. 
It was simple enough. And so, no doubt, will be the 
next mystery—when we have found it out. 

Just now the newspapers are featuring Clara Hope 


320 


THE TRAIL OF THE SQUID 


as the heroine in this famous affair of The Squid. But 
it is La Gadelle that I shall remember. How fine she 
must have been in those final hours when, struggling 
towards the truth, she battled with her own delusions 
and gave her life for one whom she knew as only a 
servant. 


THE END 
















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